Cloning of the Oryza sativa ferric chelate reductase promoter-terminator fusion into a pYU2735 plasmid: generation of a universal construct toward rice biofortification

Iron deficiency is the most common nutritional disorder in the world. Our goal is to alleviate this problem by enriching the grain of the Oryza sativa staple crop (rice) with iron. Ferric chelate reductase is a gene involved in the uptake and transport of iron and is expressed ubiquitously in the plant. We successfully generated an O. sativa ferric chelate reductase promoter-terminator fusion and cloned this insert into a pYU2735 plasmid. This universal plasmid can be used to carry out translational fusions to insert genes of interest between the O. sativa ferric chelate reductase promoter and terminator regions. We propose that this strategy will allow a cell-type-specific determination of the gene expression pattern, and hypothesize that when used along with similar constructs generated from other genes, this construct will ultimately help achieve enrichment of rice grain with bioavailable iron. Introduction Iron deficiency is the most common nutritional disorder in the world [1]. More than one billion people suffer from iron deficient anemia, which causes permanent cognitive impairment and results in an estimated 800,000 deaths annually [2]. But for various reasons, conventional alleviation strategies such as pharmaceutical supplementation have had limited success in reducing the prevalence of iron deficient anemia in developing countries [3]. It has thus been suggested that biofortified crops may provide a more sustainable and cost-effective solution [2]. Because rice is a