A thioredoxin peroxidase (TPx) gene was cloned from the bumblebee, Bumbus ignitus. The B. ignitus TPx (BiTPx) contains an open reading frame of 585 bp encoding 195 amino acid residues and possesses two cysteine residues that are characteristic of 2-Cys subgroup of peroxiredoxin family. The deduced amino acid sequence of the BiTPx cDNA showed 90% identity to Apis melifera (AmTPx-1), 80% to Aedes aegypti (AaTPx), and 78% - 47% to other insect 2-Cys TPx. Northern blot analysis revealed the presence of BiTPx transcripts in all tissues examined. Western blot analysis showed the presence of the BiTPx in the fat body, midgut, muscle and epidermis, but not in the hemolymph, suggesting the BiTPx is not secretable. The cDNA encoding BiTPx was expressed as a 27-kDa polypeptide in baculovirus-infected insect Sf9 cells. The purified recombinant BiTPx was shown to reduce H2O2 in the presence of electrons donated by dithiothreitol and shown to be active in the presence of thioredoxin as electron donor.

Perilla is a genus as a member of the mint family Lamiaceae which is known to contain lots of volatile metabolite. Perilla has been called as ‘deulkae’ indicating ‘wild sesame’ that means it has been maintained in Korea with long history. It has been very friendly used as edible oil and as fresh leaf vegetable. Perilla oil is valued for its medicinal benefit because it contains best amounts of unsaturated fatty acids, especially for the alpha-linolenic acid, known to omega-3 fatty acid, among all of the plant oils. It also include many beneficial phytochemicals. However, little study is conducted on their genetics. Here, we announce construction of well normalized and full length enriched-perilla cDNA library from a whole plant of one cultivar ‘Youngho-deulkae’ and their sequence characterization to provide useful resources for genetics, breeding and metabolite engineering. By sequencing of 5,760 cDNA clones, we 5,438 high quality EST sequences. Sequence trimming and assembly resulted 3,995 unigenes which consists 1,004 contigs and 2,991 singletones. Unigenes that showed little homology at the DNA sequence level with known genes in other plants even though they showed similarity at the protein domain level based on BLASTN, BLASTX, and TBLASTX. This study may provide good resources for initiation of further genomics, comparative genomics, functional genomics such as metabolic engineering and molecular breeding.

Ribosomal protein complex with ribosomal RNA to form the subunits of the ribosome serve essential functions in protein synthesis. A full-length cDNA (PRPS4) encoding ribosomal protein S4 has been isolated and its nucleotide sequence determined in ginseng plant (Panax ginseng). A PRPS4 cDNA is 1105 nucleotides long and has an open reading frame of 792 bp with a deduced amino acid sequence of 264 residues (pI 10.67). The deduced amino acid sequence of PRPS4 matched to the previously reported ribosomal protein S4 genes. Their degree of amino acid identity ranged from 68 to 92%. Phylogenetic analysis based on the amino acid residues showed that the PRPS4 grouped with ribosomal protein S4 of S. tuberosum (CAA54095).