Abstract
Myo-inositol is required for maintenance of the fundamental composition of cells in all organisms, such as cell wall polysaccharides and membrane phospholipids. Myo-inositol synthesis from glucose 6-phosphate is a two-step process involving conversion of glucose 6-phosphate to inositol 1-phosphate, and dephosphorylation of inositol 1- phosphate to myo-inositol. This last step is catalyzed by an enzyme myo-inositol monophosphatase (IMP). Arabidopsis IMP-like gene family has been reported in the GenBank, but physiological analysis of these enzymes has not been carried out. In this work, we identified three members of IMP-like genes in Arabidopsis genome database with significant amino acid sequence similarity to the known human IMP genes. We report the expression pattern of these AtIMP-like genes in growing plant organs by the analysis with real-time PCR and promoter::GUS transformants. Our results showed possible activities of AtIMP-like proteins in plants.
