HMG2 promoter expression system and post-harvest production of gene products in plants and plant cell cultures

Abstract

The invention relates in part to plant HMG2 HMGR genes and in part to the "post-harvest" production method of producing gene product of interest in plant tissues and cultures. The HMG2 promoter elements are responsive to pathogen-infection, pest-infestation, wounding, or elicitor or chemical treatments. The HMG2 elements are also active in specialized tissues of the plant including pollen and mature fruits. HMG2 promoter elements and HMG2-derived promoters can be advantageously used to drive the expression of disease and pest resistance genes, whereby transgenic plants containing such gene constructs would be resistant to the targeted disease and pest. In particular, the HMG2 gene expression system can be utilized in developing nematode resistant plants. The post-harvest production method of the invention utilizes plant tissues and cell cultures of plants or plant cells engineered with a expression construct comprising an inducible promoter, such as the HMG2 promoter, operably linked to a gene of interest. Production of the desired gene product is obtained by harvesting, followed by inducing and processing the harvested tissue or culture. The post-harvest production method may be advantageously used to produce direct or indirect gene products that are labile, volatile, toxic, hazardous, etc.

Description

[0001] This application is a continuation-in-part of co-pending application Ser. No. 08 / 100,816 filed Aug. 2, 1993, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.1. INTRODUCTION[0002] The present invention relates in part to HMG2 promoters, active fragments thereof, and their use to drive the expression of heterologous genes. Expression vectors may be constructed by ligating a DNA sequence encoding a heterologous gene to an HMG2 promoter or a promoter modified with an HMG2 cis-regulatory element. Such constructs can be used for the expression of proteins and RNAs in plant cell expression systems in response to elicitor or chemical induction, or in plants in response to wounding, pathogen infection, pest infestation as well as elicitor or chemical induction.[0003] The present invention also relates to a method of producing gene products in harvested plant tissues and cultures. The "post-harvest" production method utilizes tissues or cultures from transgenic plants or plan...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

This approach enables efficient and controlled production of gene products in harvested plant tissues, maintaining high expression levels for up to two weeks post-harvest, overcoming limitations of constitutive promoters and ensuring product safety and efficacy.

Problems solved by technology

Plant diseases caused by fungal, bacterial, viral and nematode pathogens cause significant damage and crop loss in the United States and throughout the world.

The conversion of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl CoA to mevalonic acid appears to be the rate-limiting step of isoprenoid biosynthesis.

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