Novel plant-derived cis-regulatory elements for the development of pathogen-responsive chimeric promotors

Abstract

The invention relates to an isolated cis-regulatory element imparting pathogen inducibility or elicitor inducibility, which comprises a nucleic acid molecule, the molecule sequence of which corresponds to one of the core sequence motifs comprising a) vaaagtm, b) aaacca, c) scaaam, d) acrcg, e) sktgkact, f) mrtsack, g) ccaccaa, h) tcgtctcttc (SEQ ID NO: 35), i) wwkgwc or a core sequence motif complementary to a) to i).

1 .- 14 . (canceled) 
     
     
         15 . A plant cell comprising a native promoter which is suitable for effecting an expression of an operatively linked nucleic acid molecule in a plant cell and which comprises a minimal promoter and at least one cis-regulatory element upstream from the minimal promoter, wherein the cis-regulatory element imparts a pathogen inducibility or an elicitor inducibility and comprises a nucleotide sequence selected from the group consisting of
 a) SEQ ID NO: 138,   b) SEQ ID NO: 139,   c) SEQ ID NO: 140,   d) SEQ ID NO: 141,   e) SEQ ID NO: 142,   f) SEQ ID NO: 143,   g) SEQ ID NO: 144,   h) SEQ ID NO: 35,   i) SEQ ID NO: 145, and   j) a nucleotide sequence complementary to the sequence of a)-i);   
       wherein the distance from the minimal promoter to the first upstream cis-regulatory element is between 0 and 300 base pairs. 
     
     
         16 . The plant cell of  claim 15 , wherein the cis-regulatory element comprises a nucleotide sequence selected from the group consisting of
 a) SEQ ID NO: 1,   b) SEQ ID NO: 2,   c) SEQ ID NO: 3,   d) SEQ ID NO: 4,   e) SEQ ID NO: 5,   f) SEQ ID NO: 6,   g) SEQ ID NO: 33,   h) SEQ ID NO: 34, and   i) SEQ ID NO: 41.   
     
     
         17 . The plant cell of  claim 15 , wherein the cis-regulatory element comprises a nucleotide sequence selected from the group consisting of
 a) SEQ ID NO: 7,   b) SEQ ID NO: 8,   c) SEQ ID NO: 9,   d) SEQ ID NO: 10,   e) SEQ ID NO: 11,   f) SEQ ID NO: 12,   g) SEQ ID NO: 13,   h) SEQ ID NO: 14,   i) SEQ ID NO: 44, and   j) SEQ ID NO: 15.   
     
     
         18 . The plant cell of  claim 15 , wherein the cis-regulatory element comprises a nucleotide sequence selected from the group consisting of
 a) SEQ ID NO: 16,   b) SEQ ID NO: 17,   c) SEQ ID NO: 18, and   d) SEQ ID NO: 19.   
     
     
         19 . The plant cell of  claim 15 , wherein the cis-regulatory element comprises a nucleotide sequence selected from the group consisting of
 a) SEQ ID NO: 20,   b) SEQ ID NO: 21,   c) SEQ ID NO: 22, and   d) SEQ ID NO: 23.   
     
     
         20 . The plant cell of  claim 15 , wherein the cis-regulatory element comprises a nucleotide sequence selected from the group consisting of
 a) SEQ ID NO: 24,   b) SEQ ID NO: 25, and   c) SEQ ID NO: 26.   
     
     
         21 . The plant cell of  claim 15 , wherein the cis-regulatory element comprises a nucleotide sequence selected from the group consisting of
 a) SEQ ID NO: 27 and   b) SEQ ID NO: 28.   
     
     
         22 . The plant cell of  claim 15 , wherein the cis-regulatory element comprises a nucleotide sequence selected from the group consisting of
 a) SEQ ID NO: 30,   b) SEQ ID NO: 31, and   c) SEQ ID NO: 32.   
     
     
         23 . The plant cell of  claim 15 , wherein the cis-regulatory element comprises a nucleotide sequence selected from the group consisting of
 a) SEQ ID NO: 27,   b) SEQ ID NO: 28,   c) SEQ ID NO: 42, and   d) SEQ ID NO: 43.   
     
     
         24 . The plant cell of  claim 15 , wherein the at least one cis-regulatory element is heterologous to the minimal promoter. 
     
     
         25 . The plant cell of  claim 15 , wherein the at least one cis-regulatory element is localized in a genetic environment that is different from that of the natural promoter of the at least one cis-regulatory element. 
     
     
         26 . The plant cell of  claim 15 , wherein the at least one cis-regulatory element comprises at least 11 nucleotides. 
     
     
         27 . The plant cell of  claim 15 , wherein the plant cell comprises at least two cis-regulatory elements. 
     
     
         28 . The plant cell of  claim 27 , wherein the distance between the two cis-regulatory elements is 0 to 10 base pairs. 
     
     
         29 . The plant cell of  claim 15 , wherein the native promoter is integrated into the genome of the plant cell. 
     
     
         30 . A plant cell according to  claim 15 , wherein the plant cell is a cell of a plant selected from the group consisting of: corn, rice, wheat, rye, barley, oats, sorghum, potatoes, oilseed rape, sunflower, soybean, cotton and  Beta vulgaris.    
     
     
         31 . A plant comprising the cell of  claim 30 . 
     
     
         32 . Seeds, cells, tissues or a part of a plant comprising the plant cell of  claim 30 .