Cloning of a novel antifungal promoter from Phaseolus vulgaris and the determination of its activity in stably transformed Nicotiana tabacum plants.

To investigate the transcriptional regulation of gene expression, chimeric fusions, between the beta-glucuronidase reporter gene (GUS) and the isolated promoter regions of the pvPDF gene (pvPDF-PRO: GUS), were constructed and introduced into Nicotiana tabacum. Analysis of transgenic pvPDF-PRO:GUS tobacco plants indicated that GUS activity was observed with all the promoter constructs with the strongest being in leaf followed by stem and roots. These results clearly demonstrate that pvPDF-PRO is a strong inducible and near-constitutive promoter and emphasize the great application potential for plant genetic engineering studies. Interestingly, a search for putative cis-acting elements in the pvPDF promoter architecture revealed the presence of some important transcription regulatory elements including: CAAT Box, TATA Box, CATA Box, and light regulatory elements (CCA1, GATA, GT-1). Taken together, these results further our understanding of the regulation of the pvPDF promoter activity.