Comparative analyses of dehydration- and cold-induced transcriptional pathways in Arabidopsis, rice and soybean via identification of cis-acting promoter elements

Abstract

Many genes have been described to respond to cold and dehydration stresses at the transcriptional level, and their gene products are thought to function in stress tolerance and response even though these stresses are quite different.
In this study, we analyzed Arabidopsis, rice and soybean promoters for all possible hexameric nucleotide combinations and revealed positional distribution of conserved sequences in the dehydration- or cold-inducible promoters. The highly conserved hexameric sequences in dehydration-inducible promoters of Arabidopsis are similar to those of rice and soybean. Abscisic acid (ABA)-responsive element (ABRE) is the most highly conserved dehydration-inducible promoter element sequences in these plants. In contrast, the highly conserved sequences in cold-inducible promoters of Arabidopsis are different from those of rice and soybean. Dehydration-responsive element (DRE) is the most highly conserved cold-inducible promoter element sequences in Arabidopsis, but not in rice and soybean. The Evening Element (EE) and ABRE are the most highly conserved cold-inducible promoter element sequences in rice and soybean, respectively.