Abstract
Over-wintering conifer Taxus cuspidata maintains their chloroplasts in the needles although they do not use light-energy absorbed by photosynthetic pigments. To elucidate the over-wintering mechanisms of needles in conifer, we have analyzed 3,000 expressed sequence tags (EST) from four cDNA librarys made from Taxus cuspidata needles harvested in summer and winter. In the EST of library made from winter needles, many early light-induced proteins (ELIPs) genes were found and the number of ELIPs EST is up to about thirty percents in total winter needle EST. By constant, any ELIPs EST could not found in summer needle EST. On the basis of these finding, we will discuss on diversity of winter survival strategy in woody plant species.
