Abstract
Ribulose 1, 5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxigenase (RuBisCO) is the key enzyme of photosynthetic carbon assimilation. RuBisCO is composed of eight small subunits encoded by nuclear gene rbcS and eight large subunits encoded by chloroplast gene rbcL. To understand the relationship between the expression of rbcS and rbcL genes at different developmental stage in leaves, we generated transgenic tobacco plants harboring antisense rbcS under the control of dexamethasone (DEX) -inducible promoter. In these plants, the amount of endogenous rbcS mRNA can be artificially reduced by induction of antisense rbcS mRNA using DEX treatment. These transgenic plants were cultured in a hydroponic growth medium with or without DEX. In this study, we report the effect of rbcS mRNA reduction on the expression of rbcL gene and the accumulation of RuBisCO in young and mature leaves.
