• Korean Journal of Plant Resources
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.238-244
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• 2003

During the life cycle, plants have to suffer from various environmental stresses. A common element in response to many environmental stresses is cellular dehydration. Dehydrins are a family of proteins commonly induced by environmental stresses associated with low temperature or dehydration and during seed maturation drying. For the study in the defense mechanism against various stresses, a cDNA clone encoding a dehydrin gene was isolated from a cDNA library prepared from tab root mRNAs of Codonopsis lanceolata. The cDNA, designated ClDhn1, is 893 nucleotides long and has an open reading frame of 480 bp with a deduced amino acid sequence of 159 residues. The ClDhn1 amino acid sequence is highly hydrophilic and possesses two conserved repeats of characterized lysine­rich K­segment (KIKEKLPG), and a 7­serine residue stretch prior to the first lysine­rich repeat that is common to many dehydrins. The DEYGNP conserved motif is, however, modified in the sequence of ClDhn1 gene. The deduced amino acid sequence of ClDhn1 was compared with other plant dehydrinls and showed high homology with Solanum commersonii