Abstract
The Opaque-2 (O2) gene from maize encodes a transcriptional activator of the b-ZIP class. We have isolated and characterized a gene from sorghum, related in sequence to the O2 gene from maize. A single copy of the gene is present in sorghum. Both genomic and cDNA sequences of the O2-related sorghum gene were determined. The sequence is highly homologous to maize O2 both in the promoter and in the coding region. The most closely related sequences contain the b-ZIP domain with only 11 amino acid substitutions in a total of 122 residues. In transient expression assays, the sorghum O2-related coding sequence, expressed from a CaMV 35S promoter, activates expression from the maize b-32 promoter as effectively as that obtained with the maize O2 sequence.
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Pirovano, L., Lanzini, S., Hartings, H. et al. Structural and functional analysis of an Opaque-2-related gene from sorghum. Plant Mol Biol 24, 515–523 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00024119
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00024119