The regulation region of larval serum protein gene, Bombyx mori. (BmLSP), consisting of the first intron, the first exon, the central promoter region and 5′-upstream region, is cloned from genomic DNA from the silkworm va-riety of Suju譓inghu. Using PCR and restriction endonu-clease methods, a series of luciferase reporter plasmids, driven by different length of BmLSP promoters, are con-structed. Via the transient expression system in BmN cells, the effects of the regulation elements and foreign insect hor-mones on the BmLSP promoter activity are investigated. The results demonstrate that the promoter activity of BmLSP is 5.8- or 4.4-fold higher than that of BmLSPs whose first in-tron or the element in 5′-upstream region harboring the homologous sequence with the first intron of light-chain fib-roin gene (EHIF) is deleted, respectively, suggesting that both the first intron and EHIF contain the main positive cis-acting elements. However, the inactive mariner transposable ele-ment (MTE) in 5′-upstream region presents a negative effect. Furthermore, the effects of juvenile hormone analogue (JHA) on the BmLSP promoter activity show a typical dose-dependent manner, that is, low concentration treat-ments increase the BmLSP promoter activity and high con-centration treatments decrease it. Meanwhile, insect ecdy-sone (MH) treatments present no significant effect.
TANG Shunming, YI Yongzhu, SHEN Xingjia, ZHANG Zhifang, LI Yiren & HE Jialu Key Laboratory of Silkworm Biotechnology, Ministry of Agriculture, Sericultural Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sci-ences, Zhenjiang 212018, China Correspondence should be addressed to Zhang Zhifang (e-mail: zjsbsri@ public.zj.js.cn)
