Groups at NARO, RIKEN and several universities have jointly developed a heat-inducible promoter which operates in plants such as Arabidopsis, soybean, rice, and maize. By comparative analysis of heat shock elements in these four plants, a gene switch could be designed which works only at high temperature, but in all four plants. As this gene switche can transiently regulate gene expression by temperature control of, e. g., a plant factory, by raising the temperature of the greenhouse before shipment, high added value can be obtained, for insance by expression of a gene that relates to high vitamin content.

JST news release, November 17, 2016