Isolation of differential genes in suspension cultures of Taxus cuspidata induced by additional taxol.

Addition of taxol into suspension cultures of Taxus cuspidata induced cell apoptosis, which was confirmed by gel electrophoresis of the DNA ladders indicating the progressive delineation of fragmented nuclear DNA (nDNA) into distinct bodies. The additional taxol not only changed the microtubule assembly of cells, but also affected the gene expression. Fourteen cDNA fragments, named as TIGT9-22, were isolated after addition of taxol and their GenBank accession numbers were given as BF704560-BF704573, respectively. Among them, TIGT13 and TIGT21 were apparently homogeneous with apbE and carbamoylphosphate synthetase, respectively. Other cDNA fragments showed no significant analogy with the known sequences in GenBank.