Abstract
Freezing temperatures are major factors limiting the geographical locations suitable for growing crops, and periodically account for significant losses in plant productivity. In order to identify rice stress-inducible genes, recently transcriptome analysis was conducted and a number of genes were identified to have high expression level in response to various abiotic stresses, including cold stress. To identify a novel cis-acting element that function in cold stress-response in rice, we performed promoter analysis using promoter regions of five cold stress-inducible genes identified by rice microarray analysis. These promoter regions were fused to the GUS reporter gene and introduced into rice. We analysed these transgenic plants and identified a novel cis-acting element for cold-stress-response gene expression in rice. We found this element in the all five promoter regions. To assess the frequency of occurence of this sequence a homology search within the promoter regions of rice cold-stress inducible genes was conducted.
