Abstract: A plant heat shock promoter has been isolated from soybean, sequenced and shown to induce gene expression in response to a temporary heat shock. This invention utilizes the disclosed plant heat shock promoters for the construction of promoter/structural gene chimeras which are expressible in plant cells in response to heat shock. The reporter gene .beta.-galactosidase was expressed transiently in response to a heat shock signal. Further, this invention permits application of heat shock inducible chimeras as a detection method for successful transformation of plant cells.

Abstract: A DNA sequence element, which activates or enhances expression of genes in plants has been identified and characterized. In particular, DNA segments isolated from the upstream region of the T-DNA 780 gene are capable of activating or increasing transcription levels of plant-expressible genes in recombinant DNA-containing plant tissue. The 780 gene transcription activator is useful in general for increasing the level of expression of a gene in a plant. In particular, such activators are useful in the construction of plant-expression complexes which contain a plant-expressible gene placed under the regulatory control of the activator. Such expression complexes can be introduced into plant tissue where the inserted gene is expressed.