Clone Of Partial Sequences Of Lignin And Cellulose Synthase Genes In Flax

Flax is an important bast fiber crop. The objective of the study was to clone partial sequences of lignin biosynthesis genes, cellulose synthase genes and cellulose synthase-like protein genes in flax and do bioinformatics analysis of the sequences. The cDNA fragments of the critical genes involved in flax were amplified from the flax bark mRNA by RT-PCR using the degenerate primers designed from conservative regions of existing homologous gene sequences. The results showed:1. Sequence analysis and GenBank BLAST revealed eight new sequences, including two CCoAOMT (EF214740, EF214741) genes, three 4CL (EF214737, EF214738, EF214739) genes, and three F5H (EF214745, EF214746, EF214747) genes. This implies that genes encoding the three key enzymes in flax liglin biosynthesis are existed as gene families. These partial cDNA sequence information is useful for cloning full length cDNA and characterizing the functions and regulations of the critical genes involved in flax lignin biosynthesis.2. Partial sequences of six CesA genes and five CSL genes were obtained by RT-PCR using degenerate primers designed according to the conservative sequences of CesA homologous genes. These sequences belong to the CesA gene family and CSLD gene family respectively. The nucleotide and putative amino acid sequence identities were 67%～88% and 71%～98% respectively among the six CesA genes and were 68%～83% and 76%～94% identities among five CSL genes.These partial cDNA sequence information is useful for cloning full length cDNA and characterizing the functions and regulations of the critical genes involved in flax.