Abstract
In higher plants, anthocyanins are the primary red pigments in flower color whereas in most families of the Caryophyllales, betacyanins have replaced anthocyanins as red pigments in flowers and fruits. These two types of red pigment, anthocyanins and betacyanins, never occur together in higher plants. Many kinds of flavonoid compounds other than anthocyanins have been found in Caryophyllales. This suggests that some late stage in anthocyanin biosynthesis might be blocked in Caryophyllales.
We have isolated DFRcDNA from Spinacia Oleraciae by RACE. The cloned spinach DNA contained a full open reading frame of 1026 bp encoding 342 amino acids. The deduced amino acid sequence of spinach DFR was compared with other published DFR amino acid sequences of Arabidopsis, grape, snapdragon, Perilla, rice, carnation, identities of 62-79% being found. The amino acid sequence of spinach DFR exhibited highest identity with those of DFR from carnation, a member of Caryophyllales.
