Jatropha curcas is a promising plant for biodiesel production and bio-jet fuel. However, to optimize its use, there are a number of Jatropha traits that must be improved, such as seed yield, freezing tolerance, pest and disease resistance, oil content, seed toxicity, and synchronous flowering/fruiting. The transgenic approach has the potential to significantly improve Jatropha agronomic and economic traits and requires various constitutive, tissue-specific or inducible promoters.

In plants, the phosphatidylethanoamine-binding protein (PEBP) gene family is divided into three subfamilies: the FLOWRING LOCUS T (FT)-like clade, the TEMINAL FLOWER1 (TFL1)-like clade and the MOTHER OF FT AND TFL1 (MFT)-like clade. Most of the MFT-like genes have been reported to express predominantly in seeds.

Prof. XU Zengfu and his team of Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) have been focusing on the genetic breeding of energy plants, especially Jatropha and Inca peanuts these years. In a recent study, they isolated JcMFT1, an ortholog of Arabidopsis MFT from Jatropha, and found that it was also expressed predominantly in seeds.

In the study, they identified two MFT genes in Jatropha, JcMFT1 and JcMFT2. Using the β-glucuronidase (GUS) reporter gene, they found that the JcMFT1 promoter was highly activated in transgenic Arabidopsis seeds and was inducible by ABA in germinating seeds, which is consistent with the presence of ABA-responsive elements in the JcMFT1 promoter. Consisting with JcMFT1 expression pattern in Jatropha, the JcMFT1 promoter-GUS analysis in transgenic Arabidopsis showed the JcMFT1 promoter was only activated in seeds of adult plants. Thus, the JcMFT1 promoter could be utilized as a seed-preferential promoter for plant genetic engineering and the functional analysis of genes involved in seed development in Jatropha and other plants.

They study entitled “A promoter analysis of MOTHER OF FT AND TFL1 1 (JcMFT1), a seed-preferential gene from the biofuel plant Jatropha” has been published online in Journal of Plant Research.