Abstract
In the environment where plants grow, there are various abiotic stresses. It has been reported that the most of mRNA is inhibited in plant exposed to these stresses. It means that the expression of transgene is also repressed at the translational level. However, a subset of mRNA escapes such repression. It is reported that 5'UTR has an important role in translational regulation under abiotic stress, and we already identified the 5'UTR involved in preferential translation under heat stress.
In this study, in order to evaluate the translational activity of the 5'UTR, we generated two transformants harboring a reporter GUS gene and preferentially translated or translationally inhibited 5'UTR, and were incubated under normal or heat stress condition, and the translational state of each GUS mRNA was analyzed by polysome/qRT-PCR analysis. As a result, they showed the same profile as their original mRNAs. Additionally, the GUS mRNA was translated normally in the transformant exposed to other stresses. These results indicate that a 5'UTR involved in preferential translation under abiotic stresses could serve as important tool to express a useful gene in plants more effectively.
