CHARACTERIZATION OF AN ARABIDOPSIS-THALIANA CDNA-ENCODING GLUTATHIONESYNTHETASE

An Arabidopsis thaliana cDNA (AtGSHS) encoding a protein with high pri mary sequence identity to cDNAs previously isolated from Xenopus laevi s (42%), Schizosaccharomyces pombe (40%), Rattus norvegicus (40%) and Hemo sapiens (37%) encoding glutathione synthetase (EC 6.3.2.3) has be en isolated by functional complementation of an Escherichia coli mutan t deficient in this enzyme, AtGSHS is encoded by a single gene, GSHB, as determined by Southern blot analysis and the corresponding mRNA is abundant in both roots and leaves of Arabidopsis.