Gene silencing using a heat-inducible RNAi system in Arabidopsis.

Frédéric Masclaux (1) , Martine Charpenteau (1) , Taku Takahashi (2) , Rafael Pont-Lezica (1) , Jean-Philippe Galaud (1)

1 SCSV - Surfaces Cellulaires et Signalisation chez les Végétaux
2 Department of Biology [Okayama]

Controlling gene expression during plant development is an efficient tool to explore gene function. In this paper, we describe a gene expression system driven by a heat-shock gene promoter (HSP18.2), to trigger the expression of an intron-containing inverted-repeat. RNA interference became a powerful way for gene functional analysis by reverse genetic approaches. However, constitutive gene silencing cannot be used with genes involved in fundamental processes such as embryo viability. Inducible promoters provide an alternative approach for temporal and spatial gene expression control and we described here a new system, complementary to those using chemical gene inducers. To evaluate the efficiency of this system, RNA corresponding to the phytoene desaturase gene of Arabidopsis thaliana was used as a reporter gene in transgenic plants and a comparative study was performed using either the CaMV35S constitutive promoter or the HSP18.2 inducible promoter.

Mots clés: Arabidopsis; conditional gene expression; heat-shock; phytoene desaturase; RNA interference.; RNA interference

Domaines: Génomique, Transcriptomique et Protéomique [q-bio.GN]

Frédéric Masclaux, Martine Charpenteau, Taku Takahashi, Rafael Pont-Lezica, Jean-Philippe Galaud. Gene silencing using a heat-inducible RNAi system in Arabidopsis.. Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, 2004, 321 (2), pp.364-9. ⟨10.1016/j.bbrc.2004.06.154⟩. ⟨hal-00119562⟩