Expression of wheat high molecular weight glutenin subunit 1Bx is affected by large insertions and deletions located in the upstream flanking sequences

PLoS One. 2014 Aug 18;9(8):e105363. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0105363. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

To better understand the transcriptional regulation of high molecular weight glutenin subunit (HMW-GS) expression, we isolated four Glu-1Bx promoters from six wheat cultivars exhibiting diverse protein expression levels. The activities of the diverse Glu-1Bx promoters were tested and compared with β-glucuronidase (GUS) reporter fusions. Although all the full-length Glu-1Bx promoters showed endosperm-specific activities, the strongest GUS activity was observed with the 1Bx7OE promoter in both transient expression assays and stable transgenic rice lines. A 43 bp insertion in the 1Bx7OE promoter, which is absent in the 1Bx7 promoter, led to enhanced expression. Analysis of promoter deletion constructs confirmed that a 185 bp MITE (miniature inverted-repeat transposable element) in the 1Bx14 promoter had a weak positive effect on Glu-1Bx expression, and a 54 bp deletion in the 1Bx13 promoter reduced endosperm-specific activity. To investigate the effect of the 43 bp insertion in the 1Bx7OE promoter, a functional marker was developed to screen 505 Chinese varieties and 160 European varieties, and only 1Bx7-type varieties harboring the 43 bp insertion in their promoters showed similar overexpression patterns. Hence, the 1Bx7OE promoter should be important tool in crop genetic engineering as well as in molecular assisted breeding.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Base Sequence
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Plant
  • Glutens / genetics*
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Mutagenesis, Insertional
  • Oryza / genetics
  • Phylogeny
  • Plants, Genetically Modified / genetics
  • Promoter Regions, Genetic
  • Protein Subunits / genetics
  • Sequence Alignment
  • Sequence Deletion
  • Triticum / genetics*

Substances

  • Protein Subunits
  • Glutens
  • glutenin

Grants and funding

National Transgenic Research Project (ZX08002-004) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (30671293). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.