Plant & Animal Genome IX Conference

Poster: Sequencing & EST
P01_33.html

ISOLATION OF DEFENSE-RESPONSE GENES FROM MAIZE USING SUBTRACTED LIBRARIES

Kansas State University, Department of Plant Pathology, Manhattan, KS

We are constructing a collection of pathogen-induced defense related genes from maize. The general approach is to clone cDNAs from maize tissue undergoing a defense response after cDNAs from unchallenged tissue have been removed. The first library was made from the lesion mimic line Rp1-Kr1N. cDNA was made from Rp1-Kr1N tissue before the appearance of lesions and subtracted using cDNA from a near-isogenic rp1 (normal) line. The second library was made from a maize line with the common rust resistance gene Rp1-D inoculated with an avirulent rust race and was subtracted with cDNA from the same line, but uninoculated. Sequence analyses of clones from the two libraries have indicated that some are highly similar to protein sequences in GenBank that are related to defense response or signaling. Examples include genes with homology to leucine-rich repeats, protein kinases, GTP-binding proteins, zinc-finger proteins, EspB-like membrane proteins, camodulin-binding proteins, putative PTS HPR components of serine phosphorylation, putative transcription factors, proline rich proteins, catalases, resistance protein homologs, and some proteinases. Sequence homology search results will be summarized on the poster.