Patent ID: 7049486

Claim:
A method of inducing gene expression in a plant which comprises providing the plant with a character of a repressor and with a character of an operator by gene transfer, wherein a gene expression inducing system comprises said repressor, said operator, and virginiae butanolide as an inducer, and administering the virginiae butanolide to the transformed plant to thereby induce, at a site of administration of the virginiae butanolide, the expression of a gene placed under the control of the operator, wherein a gene coding for said repressor comprises a region comprising a nucleotide sequence shown under SEQ ID NO:1, or comprises a region coding for an amino acid sequence shown under SEQ ID NO:2; a nucleotide sequence of said operator comprises a region comprising a nucleotide sequence shown under SEQ ID NO:3; and said operator is connected to at least one site 3′ downstream or 5′ upstream of TATA box of a Cauliflower mosaic virus 35S promoter.