Abiotic stresses are major limiting factors for crops growth and production,and stress resistance of crops can be significantly improved by overexpressing stress-related genes.In this study we aimed to isolate and identify a stress-inducible promoter which is useful for genetic engineering.Firstly a candidate promoter Oshox24P was screened and fused to GUS expression vector,and then transferred into japonica rice Zhonghua 11.GUS activity in transgenic rice plants containing GUS reporter gene under the control of Oshox24P promoter (1 918 bp in length) was induced by drought and the activity increased in response to the increasing severity of drought stress.The GUS activity was slightly induced by abscisc acid (ABA) while treatments of salt and cold had little effect on Oshox24 promoter-driven GUS expression.These results suggest that Oshox24P is a drought-inducible promoter,and will be useful for driving specific expression of target genes or proteins during drought stress,thus for genetic improvement of drought resistance.