A UBIQUITOUSLY EXPRESSED MADS-BOX GENE FROM NICOTIANA-TABACUM

Experiments in Antirrinum majus, Arabidopsis thaliana and Petunia hybr ida have demonstrated that putative transcription factors of the so-ca lled MADS-box family play an important role in determining floral orga n identity. Such regulatory genes are transiently expressed in small n umbers of cells in the floral apex. Here we describe the isolation of a cDNA from Nicotiana tabacum coding for a MAD S-box protein which is expressed in both the floral and vegetative organs of the plant.