The structure of the cotton uceA1.7 promoter and its modules was analyzed; the potential of their key sequences has been confirmed in different tissues, proving to be a good candidate for the development of new biotechnological tools. Transcriptional promoters are among the primary genetic engineering elements used to control genes of interest (GOIs) associated with agronomic traits. Cotton uceA1.7 was previously characterized as a constitutive promoter with activity higher than that of the constitutive promoter from the Cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) 35S gene in various plant tissues. In this study, we generated Arabidopsis thaliana homozygous events stably overexpressing the gfp reporter gene driven by different modules of the uceA1.7 promoter. The expression level of the reporter gene in different plant tissues and the transcriptional stability of these modules was determined compared to its full-length promoter and the 35S promoter. The full-length uceA1.7 promoter exhibited higher activity in different plant tissues compared to the 35S promoter. Two modules of the promoter produced a low and unstable transcription level compared to the other promoters. The other two modules rich in cis-regulatory elements showed similar activity levels to full-length uceA1.7 and 35S promoters but were less stable. This result suggests the location of a minimal portion of the promoter that is required to initiate transcription properly (the core promoter). Additionally, the full-length uceA1.7 promoter containing the 5'-untranslated region (UTR) is essential for higher transcriptional stability in various plant tissues. These findings confirm the potential use of the full-length uceA1.7 promoter for the development of new biotechnological tools (NBTs) to achieve higher expression levels of GOIs in, for example, the root or flower bud for the efficient control of phytonematodes and pest-insects, respectively, in important crops.
Keywords: Cotton constitutive promoter; Gene expression; New biotechnological tools; Transcriptional core promoter; Transgenic crops.