Abstract
Environmental stresses influence plants growth and productivity. Previously, we have reported that DREB2A interacts with a cis-acting dehydration responsive element (DRE) and activates expression of many stress responsive genes. To identify the upstream element of DREB2A under heat stress condition we analyze the promoter region of the DREB2A genes using transgenic plants harboring a GUS reporter gene fused various lengths of the DREB2A promoter and found an important sequence containing a heat shock element (HSE) for the expression of DREB2A. As HSFs are known to bind HSE and regulate expression of heat stress-inducible genes we analyzed expression and transactivation activities of 21 HSF-type transcription factors in Arabidopsis and selected some candidates for the regulator of DREB2A. Then, we generated transgenic Arabidopsis overexpressing those HSFs and isolated their knockout mutants. We are currently analyzing expression of the DREB2A gene in those plants.
