Summary:

Soybean remains one of the most viable targets for modification using transgenic approaches. For successful production of soybean transgenics, genes of interest need to be placed under regulatory control of promoters that drive gene expression in a consistent and tissue-specific manner. Ideally, the promoters should be of plant-origin and native to the plant being modified.

Researchers at Ohio State have identified different promoters from soybean. One of the promoters yields much higher constitutive expression than the standard CaMV35S promoter. Other promoters show root-specific expression, while some appear to express only in early-staged embryos. Promoters, which show some activity in root tissues, could be useful for transgenic approaches to controlling root pathogens or additional abiotic stresses.

Many of these promoters have been additionally modified by truncation and fusion with other promoter/regulatory regions to generate a toolbox of different soybean promoters. All changes utilized soybean promoter sequences. Due to the soybean transformation expertise at The Ohio State University, many of these promoters have been introduced and characterized in transgenic soybean.

Potential Applications:

• Crop Production
• Plant Genetics

Advantages:

Native soybean promoters with different expression profiles.