5TH International Congress on Technology - Engineering & Science - Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia (2018-02-01)

Turning Constitutive Core Promoters Into Tunable Tissue Specific Promoters By Combining Functional Analysis Coupled With Bioinformatic Tools

Promoters are regulatory sequences that are critical for gene expression since they determine the strengths and specificities of the expression. Though several constitutive promoters have been characterized in plants, there is a void in the availability of spatial or temporal promoters for targeted gene expression. Moreover, novel genomic editing tools like CRISPR/Cas9 rely upon the plant transformation methods for which use of appropriate promoters are inevitable. In this context, the present study was designed in order to make a constitutive core promoter into a tissue specific promoter with the aid of bioinformatic tools and functional analysis using GUS gene marker. Interesting results were obtained in which the core promoter with root motifs conferred root specific expression in transgenic tobacco plants. This technique will open new prospects in order to identify new tissue specific promoters and also will alleviate the studies of identifying novel promoters and their characterization. Apart from it, such designed promoters will also prevent silencing issues as they are less homologous with native gene promoters.
Chakravarthi Mohan, Subramonian Narayanan