Regulation of stress-induced inositol metabolism in plants: a phylogenetic search for conserved cis elements

Inositol and its’ metabolic derivatives such as galactinol, raffinose, methylated inositols etc. are well known significant osmoprotectants produced in response to various abiotic stresses in plants. The present work focuses on the importance of phylogenetic analysis in search of a presumptive ‘master switch’ involved in inducing a set of stress-responsive coregulated genes in the pathways involved in inositol synthesis and its further metabolism. It can be reasonably assumed that the entire network of genes induced under a particular stress is governed by a few common stress-responsive transcription factor binding sites or cis elements in their respective promoters. A phylogenetic analysis of such regulatory regions of the coregulated genes participating in entire inositol metabolic pathway throughout evolution, can form a novel approach in recognizing the conserved stress-regulatory signature(s) or ‘master switch(es)’ regulating this important pathway under the stress impact.