Characterization of the full-length sequences of phospholipase A2 induced during flower development

The suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH) method was used to isolate developmentally regulated genes during carnation flower maturation. Carnation flower maturation-related clones obtained by the SSH were serially assigned as CFMI (carnation flower maturation-induced) clones. Northern blot analysis showed that several CFMI clones were differentially expressed during flower development. One of the clones, CFMI-3, showed similarity to various animal secretory phospholipases A(2) (PLA(2)). Since little is known about PLA(2) gene sequence in plant species, the CFMI-3 clone was selected for further characterization by sequence analysis. Full sequence analysis reveals that the CFMI-3 contains a Ca(2+) binding domain, a PLA(2) active site, and 12 conserved Cys residues, which is a distinct characteristic of PLA(2). Amino acid sequence alignment of CFMI-3 to various putative plant PLA(2) confirmed that the CFMI-3 cDNA is the full-length putative PLA(2) cDNA identified in plant species. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.