Sclerotinia sclerotiorum is a phytopathogenic fungus which causes serious yield losses in canola. A pathogen inducible-promoter can facilitate the production of Sclerotinia-resistant transgenic canola plants. In this study, the “gain of function approach” was adopted for the construction of a pathogen-inducible promoter. The synthetic promoter technique was used, which involved the insertion of the dimerized form of the cisacting element (F) upstream of the minimal CaMV 35S promoter, which drives the expression of the β-glucronidase (GUS) gene. The pGFF construct containing this synthetic promoter (SynP-FF) was used for stable transformation of the canola plant. Fluorometric GUS expression analysis indicated that the SynP-FF promoter is responsive to methyl jasmonate and S. sclerotiorum treatments. The results of histochemical GUS expression patterns showed strong reporter expression in leaf, flower and stem tissues of canola. Hence, the SynP-FF synthetic promoter, carrying fungal pathogen-inducible features, could be considered as a valuable tool for controlling the expression of transgenes to improve resistance against the same lifestyle pathogens.

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