Abstract
In higher plants, peroxisomes are known to differentiate into several classes. Glyoxysomes that are abundant in cotyledons, contain enzymes of β-oxidation and glyoxylate cycle to degrade storage lipids for postgerminative growth of oil-seed plants. Leaf peroxisomes that are present in green leaves, participate in photorespiration with chloroplasts and mitochondria. Peroxisomal malate dehydrogenase(PMDH) is an enzyme of glyoxylate cycle, and exists as two isoforms, PMDH1 and PMDH2 in Arabidopsis.
We previously investigated transcription levels of the PMDH genes by RT-PCR and phenotypes of Arabidopsis pmdh mutants. These data showed that PMDH1 is mainly accumulated in glyoxysomes and function not only in glyoxylate cycle but also in β-oxidation, whereas PMDH2 is mostly accumulated in leaf peroxisomes and involved in photorespiration.
To reveal developmental and tissue-specific expression of PMDH genes, we generated transgenic plants expressing PMDH-GFP fusion genes driven by their own promoters. In this study we report the expression profiles of PMDH1 and PMDH2 based on information from fluorescent microscopic analysis.
