Study of the role of the synthetic fungal pathogen inducible SP-DDEE promoter for expression of resistant gene in Brassica napus

The expression of defensive genes from a promoter that is specifically activated in response to pathogen invasion is highly desirable for engineering disease-resistant plants. In this study, chimeric chitinase gene under the control of SP-DDEE pathogen inducible promoter transformed to the canola plants and these plants were evaluated for their in vivo biocontrol potential against fungal pathogens. In this regard, three constructs, pGDEC, pGMPC, pBISM2 containing synthetic promoters, SP-DDEE (two D and two E elements minimal promoter), SP-MP (minimal promoter), and the CaMV35S constitutive promoter, respectively were used. Enzyme activity assay demonstrated that the synthetic pathogen-inducible promoter was responsive to the Methyl jasmonate (MJ) elicitor, but not responsive to the salicylic acid. Moreover, results indicated that leaf total protein from transgenic lines harboring the SP-DDEE promoter treated with MJ, inhibited the growth of the fungal pathogens of Sclerotinia sclerotiorum and Rhizoctonia solani. Overall, data show that not only the SP-DDEE synthetic promoter is highly responsive to MJ, as an important chemical signal in necrotrophic pathogen defense, but the inducible expression of the chimeric chitinase gene, when controlled by the SP-DDEE promoter, is also seems to be appropriate to increased resistance to fungal pathogens.