Identification of an E-box motif responsible for the expression of jasmonic acid-induced chitinase gene OsChia4a in rice

The plant hormone jasmonic acid (JA) is known to be involved in multiple defence responses against pathogens, which include the production of pathogenesis-related (PR) proteins. In order to investigate the induction mechanism of the rice defence responses by JA, we performed transcriptome analyses and focused on a chitinase gene, OsChia4a, which was identified to be one of the highest JA-inductive genes. The recombinant protein of His-tagged OsChia4a exhibited an inhibitory effect against the spore germination and hyphal growth of Magnaporthe oryzae. The promoter analysis of OsChia4a revealed that the region from −515 bp to −265 bp upstream of the ATG translation initiation site was required for the responsiveness to JA. A subsequent mutation analysis indicated that an E-box (CANNTG) in this region act as a JA-responsive cis element. These results imply that a basic helix-loop-helix transcription factor is likely to be involved in the regulation of the OsChia4a expression in a JA-dependent manner.