Developing specific leaf promoters tools for genetic use in transgenic plants towards food security

Saudi J Biol Sci. 2021 Sep;28(9):5187-5192. doi: 10.1016/j.sjbs.2021.05.046. Epub 2021 May 24.

Abstract

Significant yields enrichments are necessitated for meeting the rapid global growth population together with the expected demanding for food, particularly major crops. Photosynthesis improvement is an unexploited opportunity in research on improving crop yields. However, the lack of sufficient molecular promoters tools leads to the need to explore and analyze native leaf-specified promoters for manipulating photosynthesis activities in plants. Two B. distachyon promoters, sedoheptulose-1, 7-bisphosphatase (SBPase) and fructose-1, 6-bisphosphate aldolase (FBPA), were isolated and cloned into an expression vector upstream of the eYFP reporter gene. The results demonstrate that both promoters actively function in N. benthamiana leaves in both agro-transiently assays, successfully regulating expression specifically to leaf-tissues. Exploring these active promoters could potentially provide new well genetic tools for any transgene expression in plants or leaves to genetically manipulate photosynthesis for yield improvement.

Keywords: Brachypodium distachyon; Nicotiana benthamiana; Promoter; Reporter gene; Tissue specific.