Different superstructural features of the light responsive elements of the pea genes rbcS-3A and rbcS-3.6.

Analyses of the DNA sequences, named Light Responsive Elements (LREs), relevant in the photoactivation of the two pea genes rbcS-3A and rbcS-3.6, encoding the same protein but differently expressed, have been carried out, taking advantage of two complementary methods; a theoretical analysis, based on conformational energy calculations, and an experimental evaluation of LREs curvature, derived from gel electrophoretic mobilities of multimers of the LREs and of oligonucleotides corresponding to the three boxes in which they can be dissected. Theoretical and experimental analyses show that the curvature of the rbcS-3A LRE is larger than that of rbcS-3.6 LRE, and seems to be correlated with rbcS-3A higher transcription efficiency.