| Abstract: | Three MARs(matrix attachment regions)fragments were cloned from tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum)(MAR1),yeast(Saccharomyces cerevisiae) (MAR3)and kidney bean(Phaseolus vulgaris) (MAR5)which ranged 984,822 and 782 bp,respectively.Sequence analysis showed that all the fragments had fairly high A/T content (73,62 and 75%,respectively),harbored different number and different type of some characteristic motifs of MARs,such as A-box and T-box,etc.The results of in vitro binding assay showed that the three MARs fragments derived from different organisms could bind specifically to the matrix extracted from the tobacco nuclei with different strength,which also demonstrated that these MARs fragments are functionally conserved during evolution.By using these MARs fragments to flank the β-glucuronidase (GUS) reporter gene and bialaphos resistance(bar) selectable marker gene,and then introducing the resulting plant expression vectors containing MARs-uidA-barMARs into tobacco through Agrobacteriummediated procedures,the effects of MARs sequences on the expression of transgenes in tobacco were investigated and compared.The GUS activity in individual transformants showed that,comparing to the controls without additional MARs,the overall transgene expression level in transformants with MARs had been greatly increased while the variations in transgene expression among transformants were decreased in different degrees.In accordance with the results of sequence analysis and in vitro binding assay in which MAR1 fragment showed the strongest binding strength,this MARs fragment also showed the greatest effect in increasing transgene overall expression level. |
