IDENTIFICATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF THE ARABIDOPSIS-THALIANA CHLOROPLAST DNA REGION CONTAINING THE GENES PSBA, TRNH AND RPS19'

A 1887-nucleotide chloroplast-DNA region from Arabidopsis thaliana was analyzed. It contains the conserved genes psbA for the precursor of t he D1 reaction-centre protein of photosystem II, trnH for tRNA(His), a nd rps19' for the 6.8-kDa protein of the small ribosomal subunit. Nort hern hybridization and RNase protection experiments suggest co-transcr iption of a minor RNA fraction over the full lengths of psbA and the p receding trnK-UUU gene, but not including downstream trnH sequences. I n front of the mapped 5' end of the major 1.2-kb psbA transcript is a DNA region that shows the typical architecture of a psbA promoter, con sisting of the prokaryotic-type '- 35' and '-10' elements as well as t he eukaryotic-type 'TATA' motif. The common 3' end of psbA transcripts seems to be located immediately after a stem-loop structure downstrea m from the coding region.