Cloning of various promoters for foreign gene expression in Erwinia ananas

Abstract

We constructed a promoter-trap plasmid, pEGFP-V1, to isolate various promoters for foreign gene expression in the leaf-colonizing bacterium Erwinia ananas NR-1. A library was constructed in pEGFP-V1 by introducing genomic DNA fragments upstream of the promoterless EGFP gene to transform E. ananas cells. The library, which consisted of 3500 E. ananas transformants was screened for GFP expression. We found nine strong GFP-expressing clones from the library. Furthermore, we characterized the clones by restriction analysis, sequencing, primer extension analysis, and then quantification of promoter activity. Selected promoters, specifically two (PCF9 and PCF53), gave strong gene expression in E. ananas. Our results indicate that pEGFP-V1 is a useful tool for screening DNA fragments with strong promoter activity in E. ananas.