Primary structure of a genomic zein sequence of maize

The nucleotide sequence of a genomic clone (termed Z4) of the zein multigene family was compared to the nucleotide sequence of related cDNA clones of zein mRNAs. A tandem duplication of a 96‐bp sequence is found in the genomic clone that is not present in the related cDNA clones. When the duplication is disregarded, the nucleotide sequence homology between Z4 and its related cDNAs was approximately 97%. The nucleotide sequence is also compared to other isolated cDNAs. No introns in the coding region of the zein gene are detected. The first nucleotide of a putative TATA box, TATAAATA, was located 88 nucleotides upstream of the first nucleotide of the first ATG codon which initiated the open reading frame. The first nucleotide of a putative CCAAT box, CAAAAT, appeared 45 nucleotides upstream of the first nucleotide of the zein cDNA clones in the 3′ non‐coding region also appeared in the genomic sequence at the same locations. The amino acid composition of the polypeptide specified by the Z4 nucleotide sequence is similar to the known composition of zein proteins.