Sclerotinia sclerotiorum is a phytopathogenic fungus which causes serious yield losses in canola. A pathogen inducible-promoter can facilitate the production of Sclerotinia-resistant transgenic canola plants. Inthis study, the “gain of function approach” was adopted for the construction of a pathogen-inducible promoter.The synthetic promoter technique was used, which involved the in...

We exploited the potential of cucurbits for ectopic gene expression. Agroinfiltration is a simple and commonly used method to obtain transient expression of foreign genes in plants. In contrast to in vitro transformation techniques, agroinfiltration can be used for genetic modification of mature plant tissues. Although the cucurbits are commonly used as model plants for molecular biology and bi...

We have achieved efficient transformation system for forage-type tall fescue plants by Agrobacterium tumefaciens. Mature seed-derived embryogenic calli were infected and co-cultivated with each of three A. tumefaciens strains, all of which harbored a standard binary vector pIG121Hm encoding the neomycin phosphotransferase II (NPTII), hygromycin phosphotransferase (HPT) and intron-containing β-g...

Phytosensors are plants that are genetically engineered for sensing and reporting the presence of a specific contaminant, including agriculturally important biological agents. Phytosensors are constructed by transforming plants to contain specific biotic- or abiotic-inducible promoters fused to a reporter gene. When such transgenic plants encounter the target biotic or abiotic agent, the specif...

Zinc-finger nucleases (ZFNs) have proved to be successful tools for targeted genome manipulation in several organisms. Their main property is the induction of double-strand breaks (DSBs) at specific sites, which are further repaired through homologous recombination (HR) or non-homologous end joining (NHEJ). However, for the appropriate integration of genes at specific chromosomal locations, pro...

The ZmDULL1 gene encodes a starch synthase and is a determinant of the structure of endosperm starch in maize (Zea mays L.). However, little is known regarding the regulatory mechanism of the ZmDULL1 gene. In this study, we isolated and characterized the ZmDULL1 promoter (PDULL1), which is the 5' flanking region of ZmDULL1 in maize. Sequence analysis showed that several cis-acting elements impo...

Ferns represent the most closely related extant lineage to seed plants. The aquatic fern Ceratopteris richardii has been subject to research for a considerable period of time, but analyses of the genetic programs underpinning developmental processes have been hampered by a large genome size, a lack of available mutants, and an inability to create stable transgenic lines. In this paper, we repor...

Promoters with tissue-specific activity are very useful to address cell-autonomous and non cell autonomous functions of candidate genes. Although this strategy is widely used in Arabidopsis thaliana, its use to study tissue-specific regulation of root symbiotic interactions in legumes has only started recently. Moreover, using tissue specific promoter activity to drive a GAL4-VP16 chimeric tran...

Drought stress is the main limiting factor of soybean yield. Currently, genetic engineering has been one important tool in the development of drought-tolerant cultivars. A widely used strategy is the fusion of genes that confer tolerance under the control of the CaMV35S constitutive promoter; however, stress-responsive promoters would constitute the best alternative to the generation of drought...

A promoter is an essential structural component of a gene that controls its transcription activity in different development stages and in response to various environmental stimuli. Knowledge of promoter functionality in heterologous systems is important in the study of gene regulation and biotechnological application. In order to explore the activity of the pepper capsaicin synthase gene (PUN1)...