A Phosphoribosylanthranilate Transferase Gene Is Defective in Blue Fluorescent Arabidopsis thaliana Tryptophan Mutants.

An Arabidopsis thaliana gene encoding phosphoribosylanthranilate transferase is shown to be the gene that is defective in blue fluorescent trp1 mutant plants. This gene, named PAT1, was isolated using an A. thaliana cDNA clone that suppressed an Escherichia coli trpD(-) mutation. The PAT1 coding region is homologous to those for the phosphoribosylanthranilate transferases from many microorganisms. Unlike other genes involved in aromatic amino acid biosynthesis in A. thaliana, PAT1 appears to be a single-copy gene. PAT1 was demonstrated to be the gene that is defective in blue fluorescent trp1 mutants by two methods: genetic complementation in transgenic plants and genetic mapping studies. This is the first report of cloning a plant phosphoribosylanthranilate transferase gene. The PAT1 gene should prove useful as a selectable marker for transformation or a visible reporter of gene expression when used in conjunction with trp1 plants.