Skip to main content
NCBI home page
The Plant Cell logoLink to The Plant Cell
. 1992 Sep;4(9):1141–1146. doi: 10.1105/tpc.4.9.1141

A mutant lectin gene is rescued from an insertion element that blocks its expression.

J K Okamuro 1, R B Goldberg 1
PMCID: PMC160204  PMID: 1327341

Abstract

The soybean lectin gene Le1 encodes a prevalent seed protein and is highly regulated during the life cycle. The mutant lectin gene allele le1 is not transcribed detectably, contains a 3.5-kb Tgm1 insertion element within its coding region 0.6 kb 3' to the transcription start site, and leads to a lectinless phenotype. To determine whether the Tgm1 element or a secondary mutation was responsible for repressing le1 gene transcription, we eliminated the insertion element by constructing a chimeric lectin gene (le1/Le1) that contained the 5' half of the le1 gene and its promoter region and the 3' half of the wild-type Le1 gene. Transformed tobacco seed containing the le1/Le1 gene produced both lectin mRNA and protein, demonstrating that the mutant lectin gene control region is transcriptionally competent. By contrast, transformed seed containing the le1 gene produced no detectable lectin mRNA. We conclude that the absence of detectable transcription from the le1 gene is due to transcriptional inhibition by the Tgm1 insertion element and that this element acts at a distance to block transcription from an upstream promoter region.

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (1.7 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. Barker S. J., Harada J. J., Goldberg R. B. Cellular localization of soybean storage protein mRNA in transformed tobacco seeds. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1988 Jan;85(2):458–462. doi: 10.1073/pnas.85.2.458. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Brand A. H., Breeden L., Abraham J., Sternglanz R., Nasmyth K. Characterization of a "silencer" in yeast: a DNA sequence with properties opposite to those of a transcriptional enhancer. Cell. 1985 May;41(1):41–48. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(85)90059-5. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Goldberg R. B., Barker S. J., Perez-Grau L. Regulation of gene expression during plant embryogenesis. Cell. 1989 Jan 27;56(2):149–160. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(89)90888-x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Jofuku K. D., Okamuro J. K., Goldberg R. B. Interaction of an embryo DNA binding protein with a soybean lectin gene upstream region. Nature. 1987 Aug 20;328(6132):734–737. doi: 10.1038/328734a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Laux T., Goldberg R. B. A plant DNA binding protein shares highly conserved sequence motifs with HMG-box proteins. Nucleic Acids Res. 1991 Sep 11;19(17):4769–4769. doi: 10.1093/nar/19.17.4769. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Laux T., Seurinck J., Goldberg R. B. A soybean embryo cDNA encodes a DNA binding protein with histone and HMG-protein-like domains. Nucleic Acids Res. 1991 Sep 11;19(17):4768–4768. doi: 10.1093/nar/19.17.4768. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Lindstrom J. T., Vodkin L. O., Harding R. W., Goeken R. M. Expression of soybean lectin gene deletions in tobacco. Dev Genet. 1990;11(2):160–167. doi: 10.1002/dvg.1020110206. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Okamuro J. K., Jofuku K. D., Goldberg R. B. Soybean seed lectin gene and flanking nonseed protein genes are developmentally regulated in transformed tobacco plants. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1986 Nov;83(21):8240–8244. doi: 10.1073/pnas.83.21.8240. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Proudfoot N. J. Transcriptional interference and termination between duplicated alpha-globin gene constructs suggests a novel mechanism for gene regulation. Nature. 1986 Aug 7;322(6079):562–565. doi: 10.1038/322562a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Rhodes P. R., Vodkin L. O. Highly structured sequence homology between an insertion element and the gene in which it resides. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1985 Jan;82(2):493–497. doi: 10.1073/pnas.82.2.493. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Rhodes P. R., Vodkin L. O. Organization of the Tgm family of transposable elements in soybean. Genetics. 1988 Oct;120(2):597–604. doi: 10.1093/genetics/120.2.597. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Rowland L. J., Strommer J. N. Insertion of an unstable element in an intervening sequence of maize Adh1 affects transcription but not processing. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1985 May;82(9):2875–2879. doi: 10.1073/pnas.82.9.2875. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Walling L., Drews G. N., Goldberg R. B. Transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation of soybean seed protein mRNA levels. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1986 Apr;83(7):2123–2127. doi: 10.1073/pnas.83.7.2123. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Zambryski P., Joos H., Genetello C., Leemans J., Montagu M. V., Schell J. Ti plasmid vector for the introduction of DNA into plant cells without alteration of their normal regeneration capacity. EMBO J. 1983;2(12):2143–2150. doi: 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1983.tb01715.x. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

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

RESOURCES