Characterization of PtAOS1 Promoter and Three Novel Interacting Proteins Responding to Drought in Poncirus trifoliata

Jasmonic acid (JA) plays a crucial role in various biological processes including development, signal transduction and stress response. Allene oxide synthase (AOS) catalyzing (13S)-hydroperoxyoctadecatrienoic acid (13-HPOT) to an unstable allene oxide is involved in the first step of JA biosynthesis. Here, we isolated the PtAOS1 gene and its promoter from trifoliate orange (Poncirus trifoliata). PtAOS1 contains a putative chloroplast targeting sequence in N-terminal and shows relative to pistachio (Pistacia vera) AOS. A number of stress-, light- and hormone-related cis-elements were found in the PtAOS1 promoter which may be responsible for the up-regulation of PtAOS1 under drought and JA treatments. Transient expression in tobacco (Nicotiana benthamiana) demonstrated that the P(−532) (−532 to +1) fragment conferring drive activity was a core region in the PtAOS1 promoter. Using yeast one-hybrid, three novel proteins, PtDUF886, PtDUF1685 and PtRAP2.4, binding to P(−532) were identified. The dual luciferase assay in tobacco illustrated that all three transcription factors could enhance PtAOS1 promoter activity. Genes PtDUF1685 and PtRAP2.4 shared an expression pattern which was induced significantly by drought stress. These findings should be available evidence for trifoliate orange responding to drought through JA modulation.