Patent ID: 6852511

Claim:
An isolated nucleic acid molecule comprising a heat-inducible promoter wherein the promoter is selected from the group consisting of: (a) a nucleic acid sequence comprising the promoter sequence of a Hansenula polymorpha gene encoding a protein having trehalose-6-phosphate synthase activity; (b) a nucleic acid having the sequence set forth in SEQ ID NO:1; (c) a nucleic acid which hybridizes, under stringent hybridization conditions, with the complementary strand of the nucleic acid set forth in one of (a) or (b), wherein said stringent hybridization conditions comprise (i) incubation of said nucleic acid set forth in one of (a) or (b) in 7% sodium dodecyl sulfate, 1% bovine serum albumin, 1 mM ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid, in 250 mM sodium phosphate buffer at pH 7.2 at 65° C. overnight, followed by washing with sodium chloride/sodium citrate buffer pH 7.0 (2×SSC), 0.1% sodium dodecyl sulfate or (ii) incubation of said nucleic acid set forth in one of (a) or (b) in 2×SSC at 68° C.; (d) a fragment of one of the nucleic acids set forth in any one of claims (a) to (c) which retains the function of the heat-inducible promoter, wherein said fragment is selected from the group consisting of the sequence from nucleotide 228 to nucleotide 792 in SEQ ID NO:1, the sequence from nucleotide 492 to nucleotide 792 in SEQ ID NO:1, and the sequence from nucleotide 627 to nucleotide 713 in SEQ ID NO:1; (e) a combination of a plurality of the nucleic acids set forth in any one of (a) to (d), wherein the sequences of each of the nucleic acids may be different or the same; and (f) a nucleic acid molecule having a sequence complementary to the sequence of one of the nucleic acids indicated in (a) to (e), wherein the nucleic acid molecule does not consist of the promoter sequence of the trehalose-6-phosphate synthase gene of Saccharomyces cerevisiae or Schizosaccharomyces pombe.