NUCLEOTIDE-SEQUENCE OF BARLEY-C-HORDEIN G ENE

The nucleotide sequence of barley C-hordein gene lambdaCH4 and its fla nking regions of 2820 bp length was determined. The gene contains no i ntrons and codes for 310 amino acid long polypeptide. The 94% of the d educed amino acid sequence of the mature protein (291 amino acids) is made up of a repeating octapeptide motiff, PQQPEPQQ, which is repeated throughout the peptide chain between a unique 12 amino acid long NH2 terminal and a unique 6 amino acid long COOH-terminal end. In the 5' n on-coding region there are TATA-, AGGA-, CAAT-and <<endosperm>> boxes. The 3' non-coding region has two polyadenylation signals. Compared wi th the published C-hordein sequences, our gene contains a number of in sertions, deletions and substitutions. In the 3'-untranslated region t here are two insertions 157 and 23 bp long. For the longer insertion n o significant homology was found in the Gene Bank datebase. This inser tion is the largest known rearrangement in the otherwise highly conser vative surroundings of barley storage protein genes.