Plant genes and their expression

Abstract

The transcription of protein encoding genes and their regulation in plant cells shows the signature of a typical eukaryotic system. The major outcome of research in this area is recognition of variability in components assembled to design constitutive or inducible promoters, including those constituting enhancers and boundary elements. Such cis-acting elements respond to diverse intrinsic and extrinsic signals to take care of the needs of sessile plants. While much remains to be defined about the basic transcription machinery in plants, it is expected to follow the pattern as deciphered in animals. At the same time, a large number of genes for regulatory proteins have been cloned leading to information about DNA binding domains, activation domains, nuclear localization signals and oligomerization sites. However, most of this information needs to be tested by experimentation. Availability of transgenic systems in plants and biotechnological needs have given impetus to research for designing tailor-made inducible/ repressible promoters and to manipulate plant processes by deploying transcription factors. While considerable progress has been made, much remains to be learned about the biochemical and molecular basis of regulation of plant gene expression.