Open Access

ARTICLE

Genomic cloning and characterization of a PPA gene encoding a mannose-binding lectin from Pinellia pedatisecta

JUAN LIN¹, XUANWEI ZHOU², JIONG FEI², ZHIHUA LIAO¹, WANG JIN¹, XIAOFEN SUN^1,*, KEXUAN TANG^1,2,*

1. State Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering, School of Life Sciences, Fudan-SJTU-Nottingham Plant Biotechnology R&D Center, Morgan-Tan International Center for Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, People’s Republic of China;
2. Plant Biotechnology Research Center, Fudan-SJTU-Nottingham Plant Biotechnology R&D Center, School of Agriculture and Biology, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai 200030, People’s Republic of China;
Address correspondence to: Xiaofen Sun and Kexuan Tang. State Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, CHINA. Fax: (+86-21) 65643552. E-mail: xfsun1@sohu.com or kxtang1@yahoo.com or kxtang1@sohu.com

BIOCELL 2006, 30(1), 15-25. https://doi.org/10.32604/biocell.2006.30.015

Abstract

A gene encoding a mannose-binding lectin, Pinellia pedatisecta agglutinin (PPA), was isolated from leaves of Pinellia pedatisecta using genomic walker technology. The ppa contained an 1140-bp 5’-upstream region, a 771-bp open reading frame (ORF) and an 829-bp 3’-downstream region. The ORF encoded a precursor polypeptide of 256 amino acid residues with a 24-amino acid signal peptide. There were one putative TATA box and six possible CAAT boxes lying in the 5’-upstream region of ppa. The ppa showed significant similarity at the nucleic acid level with genes encoding mannose-binding lectins from other Araceae species such as Pinellia ternata, Arisaema heterophyllum, Colocasia esculenta and Arum maculatum. At the amino acid level, PPA also shared varying homology (ranging from 40% to 85%) with mannose-binding lectins from other plant species, such as those from Araceae, Alliaceae, Iridaceae, Lillaceae, Amaryllidaceae and Bromeliaceae. The cloning of the ppa gene not only provides a basis for further investigation of PPA’s structure, expression and regulation mechanism, but also enables us to test its potential role in controlling pests and fungal diseases by transferring the gene into tobacco and rice in the future.

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