The wheat wcs120promoter is cold‐inducible in both monocotyledonous and dicotyledonous species

The wcs120gene is specifically induced by low temperature (LT) and encodes a protein that is thought to play an important role in the cold acclimation process in wheat. To identify the regulatory elements involved in its LT responsiveness, the transient expression activity of different promoter regions was determined using the luciferase reporter gene. The data indicate the involvement of putative enhancer elements, negative and positive regulatory regions in the transcriptional regulation of this gene. The promoter was found to be cold‐inducible in different freezing‐tolerant and ‐sensitive monocot and dicot species, suggesting that universal transcription factors responsive to LT may be present in all plants. This promoter could be used to drive the genes needed for LT tolerance in sensitive species.