Late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) proteins could be induced in plants under stress conditions.In this study,an LEA encoding gene fragment was isolated from the suppression subtractive hybridization library of Caragana korshinskii Kom.,and the full length cDNA was cloned by rapid amplification of cDNA ends technique.Sequencing results showed that the full length cDNA was 870 bp,with an open reading frame of 510 bp.It encodes a protein composed of 169 amino acids with a calculated molecular mass of 17.03 kD,and a theoretical pI of 9.3.The deduced protein is strongly hydrophilic.Sequence and phylogenetic analysis indicated that the protein belongs to the LEA4 subfamily,therefore it was designated as CkLEA4.Real-time quantitative PCR analysis showed that the transcript of CkLEA4 was induced strongly under different treatments,including ABA,salt and drought.These results indicated that CkLEA4 might be involved in stress responses of C.korshinskii Kom.