Transcriptional activities of a winged bean Kunitz chymotrypsin inhibitor gene promoter in stable and transient expression systems.

Sequential deletions of the promoter region of the WCI-3b gene, which encodes the major chymotrypsin inhibitor of winged bean, were constructed and their expression was analyzed in transgenic tobacco plants and in bombarded winged bean seeds. In transgenic tobacco plants, a critical promoter region which is important for high levels of expression in seeds was identified, but deletion of this region had essentially no effect when bombarded into winged bean seeds.