The objective of the proposed research is to determine whether faithful organ-specific patterns of tomato gene expression can be reproduced in a transient assay system. If so, the functional analysis of promoter elements believed to control transcription during development and differentiation will be tested. A number of conserved DNA-sequence motifs have been identified in the promoters of the five gene encoding the small subunit of ribulose-1,5- bisphosphate carboxylase in tomato. Many of these motifs interact with proteins, and patterns of protein binding to the promoters change in correlation with organ specific and developmentally regulated changes in transcription. %%% The fidelity of organ-specific and developmentally regulated expression will be tested in the transient system using several promoters whose expression patterns are known. A carefully characterized transient assay system such as this would be extremely useful for analysis of gene expression in tomato.
