Abstract
Glycosylation of anthocyan facilitates the solubility and stability of the molecule in the vacuole, and also is related to variation of flower color. Therefore, the anthocyan glycosyltransferase (AnGT), which transfer glycosyl residues to anthocyan, are essential as a factor affecting flower coloration. In this study, we used flowers of the common coral tree (Erythrina crista-galli L.), which is indigenous from southeastern Brazil to northern Argentina and has large, nontubular, brilliant crimson flowers from June to October. The flower contains cyanidin 3-O-sophoroside as the major anthocyanin in the petal, pelargonidin 3-O-glucoside as the major in the calyx, and cyanidin 3-O-glucoside as the major in the peduncle. Although anthocyanidin 3-O-glucosyltransferase (An3GT) has been studied in detail to date, there have been no reports of changes in its properties with flower organ differentiation. In this study, we report the isolation and purification of AnGT from each flower organs. As the result, we confirmed the differences of enzyme's properties and substrate specificities in AnGTs from each flower organs.
