The document reports on the isolation of a vacuolar Na+/H+ antiporter gene from alfalfa, called MsNHX1. The gene was found to encode a functional Na+/H+ antiporter when expressed in yeast. Arabidopsis plants were genetically engineered to overexpress MsNHX1, which resulted in enhanced salt tolerance of the transgenic plants compared to wild-type plants. The study demonstrates that overexpressing the alfalfa MsNHX1 gene improves salt tolerance in Arabidopsis.