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Comparative functional analysis of three abiotic stress-inducible promoters in transgenic rice

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Abstract

To identify minimal effective promoters for driving abiotic stress-inducible transgene expression in rice, we selected promoter elements of three stress-responsive genes, viz. rab16A coding for dehydrin, OsABA2 coding for zeaxanthin epoxidase, and a gene coding for a hypothetical protein (HP1) based on the presence of ABA-, salt- and drought-responsive cis-acting elements. These were translationally fused to the gusA reporter gene and introduced into rice to study their effect on heterologous gene expression. The OsABA2 promoter was found to be the most effective and desirable promoter among the three in terms of driving a low constitutive transgene expression under normal conditions and high induction in response to ABA, salt and drought stress, the highest being a 12-fold induction in response to ABA. The rab16A and HP1 promoters resulted in high levels of constitutive expression. While induction of GUS activity was generally two- to threefold for all the treatments in roots for both the promoters, induction in leaves was generally insignificant, the exceptions being rab16A in response to continuous salt stress and HP1 in response to water deficit. It was also observed that the three promoters, in general, resulted in lower constitutive expression, but higher induction in roots as compared to leaves.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are thankful to Drs. Maureen Hanson and Kenneth J. Kemphues for critically reading the manuscript and for their constructive comments. Dr. Wricha Tyagi’s help in preparing the figures is acknowledged. Partial financial support to MR from USAID Agricultural Biotechnology Support Project II is acknowledged.

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  1. Mayank Rai

    Present address: School of Crop Improvement, College of Post Graduate Studies, Central Agricultural University, Umiam, 793103, Meghalaya, India

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  1. Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA

    Mayank Rai, Chengkun He & Ray Wu

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  1. Mayank Rai
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  2. Chengkun He
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Correspondence to Mayank Rai.

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R. Wu: Deceased.

This paper is humbly dedicated to the memory of Professor Ray Wu.

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Rai, M., He, C. & Wu, R. Comparative functional analysis of three abiotic stress-inducible promoters in transgenic rice. Transgenic Res 18, 787–799 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11248-009-9263-2

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