Isolation and characterization of a gene encoding a PR-1-like protein from Arabidopsis thaliana

Because of the difficulties of studying complex phenomena in higher plants such as tobacco, we want to develop Arabidopsis thaliana as a model system for studying the hypersensitive response. As a first step toward using A. thaliana as a model system and also helping to determine the function of PR-1 proteins, PR-1 like genes from Arabidopsis were isolated. A tobacco PR-1b cDNA clone was used as a probe to isolate two genomic clones from Arabidopsis . Although both clones hybridize to the tobacco PR-1 genes, they do not cross-hybridize with each other, suggesting that there is extensive sequence diversity between the two genes.