벼 glutelin 유전자 구조 및 발현특성분석

Structural and expression analysis of glutelin genes in Oryza sativa L.

Rice is one of the most important crop in the world, in particular for food resources. With its small genome size of 383 Mb, the Oryza sativa is a model plant for genome research. Indeed, it`s grain provides human with a source of carbohydrates and proteins. Rice grain has relatively low protein contents (around 8%) compared to other legume seeds (around 40%). Osborne classified seed proteins into water soluble albumin, salt soluble globulin, alcohol soluble prolamin and acidic/alkaline solution soluble glutelin. Glutelin and prolamin are the major storage proteins in rice. For the gene expression study of seed storage proteins, we analyzed 33,192 EST clones at immature stages in a rice cultivar (Oryza sativa L. cv. ``Ilpum``). Based on the expression analysis, we cloned 11 glutelin genes and figured out the 8 genes are located on Chromosome 2. The expression of glutelin genes appears to be about 28.2% of total level in immature seeds. Interestingly, glu-04 is duplicated as inverted sequences on the same chromosomes as far 4.5 kb. Our results indicate that glutelin genes, evolutionarily, were replicated on the chromosome and thus expressed as specific manners. In a whole protein composition analysis, glu05 (type B7) contains the highest lysin contents (4.51%) among the 11 rice glutelin genes. It will be an interesting future work to increase lysin contents by the gene overexpressor strategy with the aim of improved diet nutritionally fortified.