ARS | Publication request: Elucidation of the Molecular Structure of Manganese Superoxide Dismutase (Mnsod) and the Practical Application of the Gene for Determining Change of the Total Rna Amounts in Wheat

Submitted to: Wheat Newsletter
Publication Type: Research Notes
Publication Acceptance Date: December 1, 2004
Publication Date: May 1, 2004
Citation: Skinner, D.Z., Baek, K. 2004. Elucidation of the molecular structure of manganese superoxide dismutase (mnsod) and the practical application of the gene for determining change of the total rna amounts in wheat. Wheat Newsletter.

Technical Abstract: The over-expression of antioxidant enzyme MnSOD could have increased tolerances for environmental stresses in various plants. The higher expression of wheat MnSOD responding to cold has been elucidated by our laboratory (Plant Science 165: 1221-1227), however, the molecular structure of the gene has not been reported in wheat. We are in the process of screening the library of bacterial artificial chromosome for wheat, and have gotten several positive clones which might have the MnSOD gene. The knowledge of the molecular structure of MnSOD gene will provide clues for regulating MnSOD gene more efficiently. We have also got various forms of MnSOD cDNA and transformed E.coli mutants originally without MnSOD and other superoxide dimutase. Transformation of the mutant E.coli with wheat MnSOD genes would tell us which form has the highest activity at the normal and low temperatures. We can use the information for transforming wheat with the most active MnSOD to have higher scavenging capability for reactive oxygen species. We also performed an experiment using MnSOD for detecting the change of total RNA of wheat using real-time PCR, and the manuscript describing the method was already accepted for publication by the Electrical Journal of Biotechnology. We expect the proposed method will be used in many plant tissues including animal and microbes to detect change of the total amount of RNA effectively.