Subcloning and Sequencing of Maize rbcL Promoter Region

pRLYS1 containing intact rbcL gene of maize (Zea mays L. cv Golden X Bantam T-51; Zm-A) was digested with several restriction enzymes to construct subcones carrying promoter region of rbcL. The DNA fragments of 0.20, 0.19, 0.92 and 1.55 kb among the EcoRI digests, the EcoRI-DdeI digests, the AvaI digests and the EcoRI-BamHI digests of pRLYS1 were subcloned into pBluscriptSK＋and named pRLPS2, pRLPS3, pRLPS14 and pRLPS35, respectively. Four subclones contain the 1.92 kb portion from 136 nucleotide downstream to 1780 nucleotide upstream from the ATG initiation codon of rbcL gene. pRLPS2 (-29 to -229) and pRLPS3 (-239 to -420 from the ATG) were sequenced. When nucleotide sequence of Zm-A was compared with sequence of rbcL promoter region of a different cultivar of maize (Zea mays L. cv WFG TMS X BS7; Zm-B), the difference rate between two cultivars was 4.3%. The mean of sequence divergence between Zm-A and three grass species in the same tribe, Andropogoneae, in the upstream region from 29 to 420 of ATG was 1.8%, whereas between Zm-B and above-mentioned three species was 5.4%. Therefore, Zm-A seems to evolutionarily closer to three other species in Andropogoneae tribe than Zm-B is.