Efficient chimeric plant promoters derived from plant infecting viral promoter sequences

In the present study, we developed a set of three chimeric/hybrid promoters namely FSgt-PFlt, PFlt-UAS-2X and MSgt-PFlt incorporating different important domains of Figwort Mosaic Virus sub-genomic transcript promoter (FSgt, -270 to -60), Mirabilis Mosaic Virus sub-genomic transcript promoter (MSgt, -306 to -125) and Peanut Chlorotic Streak Caulimovirus full-length transcript promoter (PFlt-, -353 to +24 and PFlt-UAS, -353 to -49). We demonstrated that these chimeric/hybrid promoters can drive the expression of reporter genes in different plant species including tobacco, Arabidopsis, petunia, tomato and spinach. FSgt-PFlt, PFlt-UAS-2X and MSgt-PFlt promoters showed 4.2, 1.5 and 1.2 times stronger GUS activities compared to the activity of the CaMV35S promoter, respectively, in tobacco protoplasts. Protoplast-derived recombinant promoter driven GFP showed enhanced accumulation compared to that obtained under the CaMV35S promoter. FSgt-PFlt, PFlt-UAS-2X and MSgt-PFlt promoters showed 3.0, 1.3 and 1.0 times stronger activities than the activity of the CaMV35S² (a modified version of the CaMV35S promoter with double enhancer domain) promoter, respectively, in tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum, var. Samsun NN). Alongside, we observed a fair correlation between recombinant promoter-driven GUS accumulation with the corresponding uidA-mRNA level in transgenic tobacco. Histochemical (X-gluc) staining of whole transgenic seedlings and fluorescence images of ImaGene Green™ treated floral parts expressing the GUS under the control of recombinant promoters also support above findings. Furthermore, we confirmed that these chimeric promoters are inducible in the presence of 150 μM salicylic acid (SA) and abscisic acid (ABA). Taken altogether, we propose that SA/ABA inducible chimeric/recombinant promoters could be used for strong expression of gene(s) of interest in crop plants.