Developmental regulation and tissue-specific differences of heat shock gene expression in transgenic tobacco and Arabidopsis plants

The heat shock (hs) response during plant growth and development was analyzed in tobacco and Arabidopsis using chimaeric -glucuronidase reporter genes (hs-Gus) driven by a soybean hs promoter. Fluorimetric measurements and histochemical staining revealed high Gus activities in leaves, roots, and flowers exclusively after heat stress. The highest levels of heat-inducible expression were found in the vascular tissues. Without heat stress, a developmental induction of hs-Gus was indicated by the accumulation of high levels of Gus in transgenic tobacco seeds. There was no developmental induction of hs-Gus in Arabidopsis seeds. In situ hybridization to the RNA of the small heat shock protein gene Athsp17.6 in tissue sections revealed an expression in heat-shocked leaves but no expression in control leaves of Arabidopsis. However, a high level of constitutive expression of hs gene was detected in meristematic and provascular tissues of the Arabidopsis embryo. The developmental and tissue-specific regulation of the hs response is discussed.Abbreviations hs heat shock - Hsp heat shock protein(s) - hs Gus: heat-inducible Gus gene(s) - HSE heat shock element(s) - HSF heat shock factor - X-gluc 5-bromo-4-chloro-3-indolyl--D-glucuronide - Gus -glucuronidase - DAF days after flowering - SAR scaffold attachment region     

The sequence of a pea vicilin gene and its expression in transgenic tobacco plants

A 5.5 kb Eco RI fragment containing a vicilin gene was selected from a Pisum sativum genomic library, and the protein-coding region and adjacent 5 and 3 regions were sequenced. A DNA construction comprising this 5.5 kb fragment together with a gene for neomycin phosphotransferase II was stably introduced into tobacco using an Agrobacterium tumefaciens binary vector, and the fidelity of expression of the pea vicilin gene in its new host was studied. The seeds of eight transgenic tobacco plants showed a sixteen-fold range in the level of accumulated pea vicilin. The level of accumulation of vicilin protein and mRNA correlated with the number of integrated copies of the vicilin gene. Pea vicilin was confined to the seeds of transgenic tobacco. Using immunogold labelling, vicilin was detected in protein bodies of eight out of ten embryos (axes plus cotyledons) and, at a much lower level, in two out of eleven endosperms. Pea vicilin was synthesized early in tobacco seed development; some molecules were cleaved as is the case in pea seeds, yielding a major parental component of M _r50000 together with a range of smaller polypeptides.     

Tissue-specific expression of the rolA gene mediates morphological changes in transgenic tobacco

The spatial and temporal activity of the entire and individual promoter domains of the rolA gene of Agrobacterium rhizogenes was investigated and correlated with the distinctive features of the phenotypes of transgenic tobacco plants. The GUS assay was performed in the presence of an oxidative catalyst during the development of transgenic plants expressing chimeric genes containing the -glucuronidase coding sequence under the control of the different promoter domains. In situ hybridization was also used on transgenic plants harbouring rolA under the control of the entire or deleted promoter. This paper demonstrates for the first time that the entire rolA promoter, composed of domains, A, B and C, is silent in seeds, then activated at the onset of germination in the cotyledons and in the elengation zone of the radicle and is finally expressed throughout the vegetative and floral phases. Domains B+C, which were sufficient to induce wrinkled leaves and short internodes, were active in all the stem tissues, but only in the companion cells of the phloem strands of the leaves. Domain C, which specified a dwarf phenotype with normal leaves, was weakly expressed in the stem vascular bundles and in the leaf internal phloem. These results indicate that the vascular bundles are the primary targets for the generation of the short internode phenotype. Furthermore, the local expression of rolA in the stem vascular bundles induced a size reduction of the surrounding parenchyma cells, suggesting the existence of some diffusible factor(s) associated with the expression of the rolA gene.     

黄粉虫热休克蛋白70基因的克隆、序列分析与表达（英文）

为给黄粉虫Tenebrio molitor抗逆机理研究提供理论依据, 本研究采用PCR和RACE法从黄粉虫幼虫中克隆出一个热休克蛋白70基因Tmhsp70, 并运用半定量RT-PCR法检测其在黄粉虫不同发育阶段的mRNA表达水平。结果表明： 克隆出的Tmhsp70 序列全长2 282 bp, 具有一个富含A的115 bp 5′ 非翻译区和一个1 935 bp的开放阅读框及一个富含A、 T的232 bp 3′-非翻译区。5′-非翻译区含有7个热休克元件nGAAn, 3′-非翻译区末端有长22 bp的Poly(A)尾。Tmhsp70编码的黄粉虫热休克蛋白（TmHSP70）具有3个典型的HSP70特征基序（IDLGTTYS, IFDLGGGTFDVSIL和IVLVGGSTRIPKIQQ）和1个胞质HSP70末端特征基序（EEVD）, 无信号肽和跨膜区域, 包含2个主要的结构域, 即： N-端42 kDa的高度保守ATPase功能域和C-端18 kDa的保守多肽结合功能域。ATPase功能域的三级结构由2个大球形亚功能域组成, 具有1个核苷酸结合中心; 多肽结合功能域形成1个双层4股β-折叠片样的三明治结构和2个α-螺旋, 内含1个多肽结合通道。此外, 黄粉虫Tmhsp70 mRNA的表达具有热激诱导和发育调控的特征。半定量RT-PCR分析表明, 42℃热激1 h的黄粉虫各发育阶段Tmhsp70 mRNA的表达量上升了1.4~26.9倍。25℃下1日龄黄粉虫蛹中的Tmhsp70 mRNA 表达量要高于其余各发育阶段的累积表达量; 42℃热激1 h 后90日龄幼虫中的Tmhsp70 mRNA 表达量最丰富, 既高于30日龄和60日龄幼虫中的累积表达量, 也高于15日龄和30日龄成虫中的累积表达量。这些结果为进一步研究黄粉虫热休克蛋白的结构、 功能和表达调控及其与抗逆性的关系奠定了基础。     

A rice promoter containing both novel positive and negative cis-elements for regulation of green tissue-specific gene expression in transgenic plants

The tissue-specific expression of transgenes is essential in plant breeding programmes to avoid the fitness costs caused by constitutive expression of a target gene. However, knowledge on the molecular mechanisms of tissue-specific gene expression and practicable tissue-specific promoters is limited. In this study, we identified the cis -acting elements of a tissue-specific promoter from rice, P_D54O , and tested the application of original and modified P_D54O and its cis -elements in the regulation of gene expression. P_D54O is a green tissue-specific promoter. Five novel tissue-specific cis -elements (LPSE1, LPSE2, LPSRE1, LPSRE2, PSE1) were characterized from P_D54O . LPSE1 activated gene expression in leaf and young panicle. LPSRE2 suppressed gene expression in leaf, root, young panicle and stem, and PSE1 suppressed gene expression in young panicle and stem. LPSRE1 and LPSE2 had dual roles in the regulation of tissue-specific gene expression; both functioned as activators in leaf, but LPSRE1 acted as a repressor in stem and LPSE2 as a repressor in young panicle and root. Transgenic rice plants carrying cry1Ac encoding Bacillus thuringiensis endotoxin, regulated by P_D54O , were resistant to leaf-folders, with no Cry1Ac protein found in endosperm or embryo. A reporter gene regulated by a series of truncated P_D54O showed various tissue-specific expression patterns. Different fragments of P_D54O fused with the constitutive cauliflower mosaic virus 35S promoter suppressed 35S -regulated gene expression in various tissues. P_D54O , truncated P_D54O and the tissue-specific cis -elements provide useful tools for the regulation of tissue-specific gene expression in rice breeding programmes.     

Homologous recombination-mediated knock-in targeting of the MET1a gene for a maintenance DNA methyltransferase reproducibly reveals dosage-dependent spatiotemporal gene expression in rice

Although homologous recombination-promoted knock-in targeting to monitor the expression of a gene by fusing a reporter gene with its promoter is routine practice in mice, gene targeting to modify endogenous genes in flowering plants remains in its infancy. In the knock-in targeting, the junction sequence between a reporter gene and an endogenous target promoter can be designed properly, and transgenic plants carrying an identical and desired knock-in allele can be repeatedly obtained. By employing a reproducible gene-targeting procedure with positive–negative selection in rice, we were able to obtain fertile transgenic knock-in plants with the promoterless GUS reporter gene encoding β-glucuronidase fused with the endogenous promoter of MET1a , one of two rice MET1 genes encoding a maintenance DNA methyltransferase. All of the primary (T₀) transgenic knock-in plants obtained were found to carry only one copy of GUS , with the anticipated structure in the heterozygous condition, and no ectopic events associated with gene targeting could be detected. We showed the reproducible, dosage-dependent and spatiotemporal expression of GUS in the selfed progenies of independently isolated knock-in targeted plants. The results in knock-in targeted plants contrast sharply with the results in transgenic plants with the MET1a promoter -fused GUS reporter gene integrated randomly in the genome: clear interindividual variation of GUS expression was observed among independently obtained plants bearing the randomly integrated transgenes. As our homologous recombination-mediated gene-targeting strategy with positive–negative selection is, in principle, applicable to modify any endogenous gene, knock-in targeting would facilitate basic and applied plant research.     

黄瓜全基因组热激转录因子(HSFs)的鉴定与表达分析

热激转录因子 (Heat shock factors, HSFs) 普遍存在于整个生物界。尽管植物HSFs的DNA 结合域具有较高的保守性, 但其结构特征、生物功能具有多样化的特点。本文利用黄瓜(Cucumis sativus L.)全基因组测序结果, 运用生物信息学方法鉴定了黄瓜HSFs, 并对其数量、序列特征、染色体定位以及系统发育关系等进行分析。结果表明, 黄瓜至少含有21个HSFs基因家族成员, 编码184～560个氨基酸, 分子量21.2~62.3 kDa, 等电点(PI)4.70~9.10; 序列比对发现这些成员都具有转录因子特有的DNA结合域(DNA binding domain, DBD); 染色体定位分析表明, 除Csa026480之外, 其余HSFs不均匀分布在黄瓜7条染色体上。从拟南芥(Arabidopsis thaliana)和黄瓜HSFs系统发育树可以看出, 这些转录因子分为3个分支, 其中Ⅰ分支进一步可分为3类(A、B、C类), 系统发育分析揭示黄瓜HSFs蛋白存在9对直系同源蛋白, 3对旁系同源蛋白, 表明HSF转录因子基因家族的多样化发生在黄瓜和拟南芥分化之前。EST表达分析发现这些热激转录因子参与黄瓜的果实、雌花和两性花的发育与形成; 通过qRT-PCR分析, 发现这些基因在黄瓜苗期应对高温热激响应中表达水平存在显著的差异。研究结果为进一步分析黄瓜热激转录因子奠定了基础。     

Functional dissection of a bean chalcone synthase gene promoter in transgenic tobacco plants reveals sequence motifs essential for floral expression

Expression of chalcone synthase (CHS), the first enzyme in the flavonoid branch of the phenylpropanoid biosynthetic pathway in plants, is induced by developmental cues and environmental stimuli. We used plant transformation technology to delineate the functional structure of the French bean CHS15 gene promoter during plant development. In the absence of an efficient transformation procedure for bean, Nicotiana tabacum was used as the model plant. CHS15 promoter activity, evaluated by measurements of -d-glucuronidase (GUS) activity, revealed a tissue-specific pattern of expression similar to that reported for CHS genes in bean. GUS activity was observed in flowers and root tips. Floral expression was confined to the pigmented part of petals and was induced in a transient fashion. Fine mapping of promoter cis-elements was accomplished using a set of promoter mutants generated by unidirectional deletions or by site-directed mutagenesis. Maximal floral and root-specific expression was found to require sequence elements located on both sides of the TATA-box. Two adjacent sequence motifs, the G-box (CACGTG) and H-box (CCTACC(N)₇CT) located near the TATA-box, were both essential for floral expression, and were also found to be important for root-specific expression. The CHS15 promoter is regulated by a complex interplay between different cis-elements and their cognate factors. The conservation of both the G-box and H-box in different CHS promoters emphasizes their importance as regulatory motifs.