scholarly journals Identification of Citrus Fruit-Specific and Pathogen-Induced Promoters and Their Use in Molecular Engineering

Author(s):  
Ron Porat ◽  
Doron Holland ◽  
Linda Walling

This one year BARD project was funded to develop methods to monitor promoter activity a gene expression patterns in citrus fruit. To fulfill this goal, we divided the research tasks between both labs so that the Israeli side evaluated the use of microprojectile bombardment ; a tool to evaluate transient gene expression in various citrus fruit tissues, and the US side optimized technical parameters required for Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of various citrus cultivars. Microprojectile bombardment appeared to be a very efficient method for transient gene expression analysis in citrus leaf tissues but was somewhat less applicable in fruit tissues. Nevertheless, we did succeeded to achieve significant levels of 35S-GUS gene expression in young green flavedo tissue. However, only single random spots of 35S-GUS gene expression were detected mature flavedo and in juice sacs and albedo tissue. Overall, we assume that following some more technical improvements particle bombardment could provide a useful technique to rapidly analyze promoter activity at least in the flavedo tissue. For Agrobacterium-mediated transformation, we found that shoot cultures of 'Washington' navel oranges,'Fairchild' mandarins,'Eureca' lemons,'Troyer' citrange and various grapefruits provided a more reliable and consistent source of tissue for transformation than germinated seedlings. Moreover, various growth media's (McCown, Quoirin & Lepoivre, DCR) further improved shoot and root growth relative to MS mineral media, which is commonly used. Also pure white light (using bulbs which do not emit UV or blue light) improved shoot growth in various citrus varieties, and paromomycin appeared to be a more efficient antibiotic for the selection of transgenic plants than Kanamycin. Overall, these optimizations improve transformation efficacy and shoot growth and rooting capacity. In addition to the development of transformation methods, both Israeli and US labs achieved progress in the identification of citrus fruit-specific promoters. In Israel, we isolated a 3.6 kb promoter fragment of the thiamine biosynthesis c-thi gene, which is highly expressed in fruit peel tissue, whereas in the US we isolated a 1.5 kb promoter fragment of the citrus seed-specific cDNA CssH. The identification of more fruit-specific cDNAs and their corresponding promoter regions is currently in progress.

1999 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 299-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Romulo Marino Llamoca-Zárate ◽  
Luiz Ferreira Aguiar Ponte ◽  
Joerg Landsmann ◽  
Francisco de Assis Paiva Campos

We have demonstrated the transient expression of the GUS gene in cells of the meristematic apical dome of Opuntia ficus-indica. DNA delivery into the cells was achieved using a biolistic PDS-1000He instrument from Bio-Rad Laboratories. The transforming DNA was coated in tungsten particles with diameter of 1.3 m m and the distance between the flying disk and the target tissue was 7.5cm and the shooting pressure was adjusted to 1200 psi. This is the first demonstration that the biolistic transformation system can be used to express a transgene in a member of the Cactaceae.


Plant Science ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 105 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reiner Hunold ◽  
Monique Burrus ◽  
Roberte Bronner ◽  
Jean-Pierre Duret ◽  
Günther Hahne

1996 ◽  
Vol 318 (1) ◽  
pp. 263-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
René W. L. M. NIESSEN ◽  
Farhad REZAEE ◽  
Pieter H. REITSMA ◽  
Marjolein PETERS ◽  
Jan J. M. de VIJLDER ◽  
...  

We studied potential modulators of antithrombin gene expression. A putative hormone response element (HRE) was identified by sequence similarity analysis of the antithrombin promoter, situated between nucleotides -92 and -54 relative to the transcription start site. This HRE contains three hexanucleotide motifs with an AGGTCA consensus, which are potential targets of members of the steroid/thyroid superfamily of nuclear receptors. Stimulation of the hepatoma cell line HepG2 with the receptor ligands l-3,5,3´-tri-iodothyronine, all-trans retinoic acid, or their combination, increased production of antithrombin into the culture medium by 1.3-, 1.6-, and 2.0-fold, respectively. In contrast, the receptor ligand 1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol [1,25-(OH)2VitD3] did not influence antithrombin production. Analysis of promoter chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) constructs, showed that the first 86 bp of the antithrombin promoter region are sufficient for basal transcription. The DNA length polymorphism of 32 bp or 108 bp, located upstream of position -276, did not influence antithrombin promoter activity. The antithrombin promoter activity dropped to background values when deleting the region -97/-49 of promoter fragment -453/+57. Transactivation of the antithrombin promoter by retinoid X receptor α (RXRα) (5–7-fold) or thyroid hormone receptor β (TRβ) (4–5-fold) was only observed when at least -167/+57 bp of the promoter region is present in CAT constructs, and when the appropriate ligand of the nuclear receptor was added. This transactivation was not observed upon deletion of the antithrombin promoter region -97/-49. With three copies of the antithrombin promoter fragment -109/-42 in front of the thymidine kinase minimal promoter, transactivation was only obtained with RXRα, and not with TRβ. In conclusion, these results indicate that the ligand-dependent enhancement of antithrombin gene expression is regulated by RXRα as well as by TRβ. Transactivation of antithrombin gene expression by RXRα and TRβ appears to be dependent upon the presence of promoter region up to nucleotide -167. The HRE segment (-109/-42) only confers RXRα responsiveness to a heterologous promoter. Further study is needed to unravel the exact nature of this HRE and its 5´-flanking sequences.


1985 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
pp. 1034-1042
Author(s):  
J C Alwine

The effects of trans-acting factors and transfected DNA stability on promoter activity were examined with chloramphenicol acetyl transferase (CAT) transient expression analysis. With cotransfection into CV-1P and HeLa cells, simian virus 40 T antigen, adenovirus E1a, and herpes-virus IE proteins were compared for their ability to trans-activate a variety of eucaryotic promoters constructed into CAT plasmids. T antigen and the IE protein were promiscuous activators of all the promoters tested [the simian virus 40 late promoter, the adenovirus E3 promoter, the alpha 2(I) collagen promoter, and the promoter of the Rous sarcoma virus long terminal repeat]. Conversely the E1a protein was specific, activating only the adenovirus E3 promoter and suppressing the basal activity of the other promoters. This specificity of activation by E1a contrasted with the high activity generated by all of the promoter-CAT plasmids when transfected into 293 cells, which endogenously produce E1a protein. Examination of transfected 293 cells determined that they stabilized much greater amounts of plasmid DNA than any other cells tested (CV-1P, COS, NIH-3T3, KB). Thus the high activity of nonadenovirus promoter-CAT plasmids in 293 cells results from the cumulative effect of basal promoter activity from a very large number of gene copies, not from E1a activation. This conclusion was supported by similar transfection analysis of KB cell lines which endogenously produce E1a protein. These cells stabilize plasmid DNA at a level comparable to that of CV-1P cells and, in agreement with the CV-1P cotransfection results, did not activate a nonadenovirus promoter-CAT plasmid. These results indicate that the stability of plasmid DNA must be considered when transient gene expression is being compared between cell lines. The use of relative plasmid copy numbers for the standardization of transient expression results is discussed.


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