title: Screening for genes specific to coniferous species.
abstract: Sequence similarity between genes of angiosperms and conifers was analyzed to identify genes specific to conifer lineages. Using the BLAST and FASTA algorithms, we identified 156 putative conifer-specific transcripts among 5253 unique transcripts of Cryptomeria japonica D. Don. For more than half of the 156 conifer-specific transcripts obtained, the regions conserved among conifers corresponded to the predicted open reading frames, suggesting that the obtained transcripts encode functional proteins. Four of the putative conifer-specific transcripts appeared to be tissue-specific; three were specific to reproductive organs and the other was specific to wood-forming tissues. Comparisons of highly conserved nucleotide sequences in conifer lineages indicated that the nucleotide compositions of orthologous genes were similar, although no common features were found among the conifer-specific genes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Forest Genetics, Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, 1 Matsunosato, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8687 Japan. udino@affrc.go.jp
authors.forename: Tokuko
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ujino-Ihara
authors.forename: Yoshihiko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Tsumura
mesh_terms: D020816:Amino Acid Motifs; D018744:DNA, Plant / Q000737:chemistry; D019684:Magnoliopsida / Q000235:genetics; D009711:Nucleotides / Q000032:analysis; D064028:Tracheophyta / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D018744:DNA, Plant; D009711:Nucleotides