Abstract
Synthetic pathogen-inducible promoters (SPIP) hold a great promise to meet the demands for a desired temporal and spatial regulation of transgenes. Four pathogen-inducible cis-elements (F-box, S-box, Gst1-box, and W-box) and the minimal cauliflower mosaic virus 35S (CaMV 35S) promoter (-46 to +8 TATA box) were used to design SPIP. Eight SPIP were synthesized and named FSGW, FSWG, GWFS, GWSF, SFGW, SFWG, WGFS, and WGSF according to the order of cis-element dimers. They were used to replace the CaMV 35S promoter in the plasmid pBI121 to control expression of the β-glucuronidase (gus) gene. The transcriptional properties of each SPIP were evaluated in homozygous T3 lines of transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana by histochemical staining gus expression and real time quantitative PCR. FSGW and FSWG had a very low basal level and a poor inducibility. The other six SPIP showed different levels of background and inducibility. Using Ralstonia solanacearum, the spores of Phytophthora capsici, and salicylic acid as inducing factors, GWSF showed the advantages of a low basal expression, rapid response, and efficient transcriptional activity in the rosette leaves of five-week-old plants. The results indicate that the permutation and combination of the cis-elements had important effects on transcriptional activities of SPIP. Synthetic pathogen-inducible promoters like GWSF are valuable because it can potentially be further improved to apply to plant genetic engineering for disease resistance.
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Abbreviations
- CS:
-
connection sequence
- GUS:
-
β-glucuronidase
- MS:
-
Murashige and Skoog
- qPCR:
-
quantitative PCR
- SPIP:
-
synthetic pathogen-inducible promoters
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Acknowledgements: This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31570660) and other funds (2014A030307005, 2014A03014, and S2012010008737). The first two authors contributed equally to this work.
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Huang, Z.C., Peng, S., Li, H. et al. Transcriptional properties of eight synthetic pathogen-inducible promoters in transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana . Biol Plant 61, 389–393 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10535-016-0665-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10535-016-0665-8