Skip to main content
PMC home page
The Plant Cell logoLink to The Plant Cell
. 1989 Oct;1(10):969–976. doi: 10.1105/tpc.1.10.969

Abscisic acid-responsive sequences from the em gene of wheat.

W R Marcotte Jr 1, S H Russell 1, R S Quatrano 1
PMCID: PMC159833  PMID: 2562556

Abstract

We demonstrate that a chimeric gene containing the beta-glucuronidase (GUS) reporter gene linked to a 646-base pair 5' fragment (-554 to +92) from the abscisic acid (ABA)-regulated Em gene from wheat is correctly expressed in transgenic tobacco. We observe high activity only in embryos of mature seeds, and immature seeds cultured on ABA show enhanced expression. Using a rice transient assay, we identify a 260-base pair fragment (-168 to +92) that accounts for the ABA-specific 15-fold to 20-fold increase in GUS expression. A 50-base pair sequence (-152 to -103) fused 5' in either orientation to a truncated cauliflower mosaic virus promoter (35S) increases GUS activity threefold in the presence of ABA. Insertion of the Em 5'-untranslated region (+6 to +86) between the 35S promoter and the ATG of GUS results in a 10-fold increase in GUS activity in the absence of ABA. These results suggest the following two functional fragments of the Em 5' region: an ABA response element from -152 to -103 and an element between +6 and +86 that quantitatively increases the ABA response.

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (1.3 MB).

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. A simple and general method for transferring genes into plants. Science. 1985 Mar 8;227(4691):1229–1231. doi: 10.1126/science.227.4691.1229. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Ainley W. M., Walker J. C., Nagao R. T., Key J. L. Sequence and characterization of two auxin-regulated genes from soybean. J Biol Chem. 1988 Aug 5;263(22):10658–10666. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Benfey P. N., Chua N. H. Regulated genes in transgenic plants. Science. 1989 Apr 14;244(4901):174–181. doi: 10.1126/science.244.4901.174. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Bevan M. Binary Agrobacterium vectors for plant transformation. Nucleic Acids Res. 1984 Nov 26;12(22):8711–8721. doi: 10.1093/nar/12.22.8711. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Bray E. A., Beachy R. N. Regulation by ABA of beta-Conglycinin Expression in Cultured Developing Soybean Cotyledons. Plant Physiol. 1985 Nov;79(3):746–750. doi: 10.1104/pp.79.3.746. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Broglie K. E., Biddle P., Cressman R., Broglie R. Functional analysis of DNA sequences responsible for ethylene regulation of a bean chitinase gene in transgenic tobacco. Plant Cell. 1989 Jun;1(6):599–607. doi: 10.1105/tpc.1.6.599. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Burnstein K. L., Cidlowski J. A. Regulation of gene expression by glucocorticoids. Annu Rev Physiol. 1989;51:683–699. doi: 10.1146/annurev.ph.51.030189.003343. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Bustos M. M., Guiltinan M. J., Jordano J., Begum D., Kalkan F. A., Hall T. C. Regulation of beta-glucuronidase expression in transgenic tobacco plants by an A/T-rich, cis-acting sequence found upstream of a French bean beta-phaseolin gene. Plant Cell. 1989 Sep;1(9):839–853. doi: 10.1105/tpc.1.9.839. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Chen Z. L., Pan N. S., Beachy R. N. A DNA sequence element that confers seed-specific enhancement to a constitutive promoter. EMBO J. 1988 Feb;7(2):297–302. doi: 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1988.tb02812.x. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Chen Z. L., Schuler M. A., Beachy R. N. Functional analysis of regulatory elements in a plant embryo-specific gene. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1986 Nov;83(22):8560–8564. doi: 10.1073/pnas.83.22.8560. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Evans R. M. The steroid and thyroid hormone receptor superfamily. Science. 1988 May 13;240(4854):889–895. doi: 10.1126/science.3283939. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Figurski D. H., Helinski D. R. Replication of an origin-containing derivative of plasmid RK2 dependent on a plasmid function provided in trans. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1979 Apr;76(4):1648–1652. doi: 10.1073/pnas.76.4.1648. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Gómez J., Sánchez-Martínez D., Stiefel V., Rigau J., Puigdomènech P., Pagès M. A gene induced by the plant hormone abscisic acid in response to water stress encodes a glycine-rich protein. Nature. 1988 Jul 21;334(6179):262–264. doi: 10.1038/334262a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Huttly A. K., Baulcombe D. C. A wheat alpha-Amy2 promoter is regulated by gibberellin in transformed oat aleurone protoplasts. EMBO J. 1989 Jul;8(7):1907–1913. doi: 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1989.tb03593.x. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Huttly A. K., Martienssen R. A., Baulcombe D. C. Sequence heterogeneity and differential expression of the alpha-Amy2 gene family in wheat. Mol Gen Genet. 1988 Oct;214(2):232–240. doi: 10.1007/BF00337716. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Ingelbrecht I. L., Herman L. M., Dekeyser R. A., Van Montagu M. C., Depicker A. G. Different 3' end regions strongly influence the level of gene expression in plant cells. Plant Cell. 1989 Jul;1(7):671–680. doi: 10.1105/tpc.1.7.671. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. McClure B. A., Hagen G., Brown C. S., Gee M. A., Guilfoyle T. J. Transcription, organization, and sequence of an auxin-regulated gene cluster in soybean. Plant Cell. 1989 Feb;1(2):229–239. doi: 10.1105/tpc.1.2.229. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  18. Pietrzak M., Shillito R. D., Hohn T., Potrykus I. Expression in plants of two bacterial antibiotic resistance genes after protoplast transformation with a new plant expression vector. Nucleic Acids Res. 1986 Jul 25;14(14):5857–5868. doi: 10.1093/nar/14.14.5857. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  19. Robert L. S., Thompson R. D., Flavell R. B. Tissue-specific expression of a wheat high molecular weight glutenin gene in transgenic tobacco. Plant Cell. 1989 Jun;1(6):569–578. doi: 10.1105/tpc.1.6.569. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  20. Sleat D. E., Gallie D. R., Jefferson R. A., Bevan M. W., Turner P. C., Wilson T. M. Characterisation of the 5'-leader sequence of tobacco mosaic virus RNA as a general enhancer of translation in vitro. Gene. 1987;60(2-3):217–225. doi: 10.1016/0378-1119(87)90230-7. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  21. Theologis A., Huynh T. V., Davis R. W. Rapid induction of specific mRNAs by auxin in pea epicotyl tissue. J Mol Biol. 1985 May 5;183(1):53–68. doi: 10.1016/0022-2836(85)90280-3. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  22. Williamson J. D., Quatrano R. S. ABA-Regulation of Two Classes of Embryo-Specific Sequences in Mature Wheat Embryos. Plant Physiol. 1988 Jan;86(1):208–215. doi: 10.1104/pp.86.1.208. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  23. Wreschner D. H., Rechavi G. Differential mRNA stability to reticulocyte ribonucleases correlates with 3' non-coding (U)nA sequences. Eur J Biochem. 1988 Mar 1;172(2):333–340. doi: 10.1111/j.1432-1033.1988.tb13891.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from The Plant Cell are provided here courtesy of Oxford University Press

RESOURCES