*2.5. Generation of CaHSP18.1a-Overexpression Arabidopsis Lines*

The entire coding regions of *CaHSP18.1a* were cloned into the pVBG2307 vector between the *Xba*I and *Kpn*I restriction sites to yield the final plasmid pVBG2307: *CaHSP18.1a* used for genetic transformation (the primers used for this experiment are given in Supplementary Table S1). The recombinant fusion vector was transformed into *Agrobacterium* strain GV3101 and transformed into *Arabidopsis thaliana* as described by Clough and Bent [42]. Transformed strains of pVBG2307 expression vector were screened with kanamycin and confirmed by PCR verification. We extracted DNA to detect the correctness of the target band. First, the fragment lengths of the bands were compared with the target band, obtaining, respectively, the OE1, OE2, OE3, OE4, and OE5 lines. Next, we performed real-time qRT-PCR quantitative analysis and detected the transcript from the inserted construct (Supplementary Figure S2B). *CaHSP18.1a* was thus determined to be expressed in large quantities in the OE3, OE2, and OE1 strains, but the wild-type gene was not detected. Both the target band and qRT-PCR results indicated that the *CaHSP18.1a* gene was successfully transferred into *Arabidopsis thaliana*, and the obtained T3-generation *Arabidopsis thaliana* could thus be used for further experiments.
