Abstract
The expression of plant genes specifically induced during rhizobial infection and the early stages of nodule ontogeny (early nodulin genes) and those induced in the mature, nitrogen-fixing nodule (late nodulin genes) is differentially regulated and tissue/cell specific. We have been interested in the signal transduction pathway responsible for symbiotic, temporal and spatial control of expression of an early (Enod2) and a late (Leghemoglobin; lb) nodulin gene from the stem-nodulated legume Sesbania rostrata, and in identifying the cis-acting elements and trans-acting factors involved in this process (De Bruijn and Schell, 1992). By introducing chimeric S. rostrata lb promoter-gus reporter gene fusions into transgenic Lotus corniculatus plants, we have been able to show that the lb promoter directs an infected-cell-specific expression pattern in Lotus nodules. We have been able to delimit the cis-acting element responsible for nodule-infected-cell-expression to a 78 bp region of the lb promoter (NICE Element) and have analyzed this element in detail by site-specific mutagenesis. We have studied the interaction of the NICE element, and further upstream cis-acting elements, with trans-acting factors of both plant- and rhizobial origin. We have obtained evidence for the involvement of rhizobial proteins in infected-cell-specific plant gene expression (Welters et al.,1993). We have purified one of the bacterial binding proteins from the S. rostrata symbiont Azorhizobium caulinodans (AcBBP1), and cloned and mutated the corresponding gene, in order to examine its symbiotic phenotype. We have also found that the S. rostrata Enod2 gene is rapidly induced by physiologically significant concentrations of cytokinins, suggesting the role of cytokinin as a potential secondary signal involved in nodulation (Dehio and De Bruijn, 1992). We are examining whether the observed cytokinin induction, as well as the nodule-specific expression pattern, are modulated by the SrEnod2 promoter.
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De Bruijn, F.J., Chen, R., Fujimoto, S.Y., Pinaev, A., Silver, D., Szczyglowski, K. (1994). Regulation of nodulin gene expression. In: Graham, P.H., Sadowsky, M.J., Vance, C.P. (eds) Symbiotic Nitrogen Fixation. Developments in Plant and Soil Sciences, vol 57. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-1088-4_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-1088-4_6
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