Peridinin chlorophyll protein 유전자의 특성규명

Abstract

Photosynthetic dinoflagellates contain a membrane bound light harvesting complex similar to that of higher plants. In addition, they have developed a water-soluble antenna, peridinin chlorophyll protein (PCP), which has no sequence similarity with other known proteins. Although extensive studies have examined PCP proteins, only a few complete pcp nucleotide sequences have been reported to date. PCPs occur in two different forms, a short form with a molecular mass of 15 kDa and a long form with a mass of 32-35 kDa. This study describes PCP and its cDNA from Alexandrium tamarence. mRNA isolated from Alexandrium tamarence was used for the construction of cDNA libraries. A cDNA clone was identified which encoded the PCP including a 55 amino acid transit peptide and the 314 amino acid mature protein. The deduced amino acid sequence clearly contains an internal duplication, implying that amongst dinoflagellates the long form of PCP has arisen by duplication and fusion of genes encoding short form. The predicted amino acid sequence displayed a 50%-70% identity with the other known pcp sequences. Expression and regulation of this PCP gene will be discussed.