Young seedlings were treated by 300 mmol/L NaCl and harvested after being treated for 0,1,2,4,8,16,24 and 48 hours for RNA extraction.Northern Blot was performed to check the expression of AtPUB18.The result showed that the expression was induced by high salinity stress and reached the peak after treatment for 4 h followed by decreasing to the lowest level after 16 h treatment.PCR was performed to clone the promoter of AtPUB18 which is composed of 1 974 bp.Analysis of the sequence of this promoter displayed that many cis-elements associated with abiotic stress localized in promoter,such as HSE,LTR,MBS and ABRE.The promoter were cloned into pCambia1300-221-GUS to drive the expression of GUS.Histochemical staining revealed that the expression level of GUS without salt treatment was very low,but the expression of GUS became much stronger after 4 h of 300 mmol/L NaCl treatment.Our results manifested that the expression of AtPUB18 can be induced by salt stress and the promoter of AtPUB18 is a high salinity-induced promoter.