Molecular cloning of two isoinhibitor forms of chymotrypsin inhibitor 1 (CI-1) from barley endosperm and their expression in normal and mutant barleys.

Full-length cDNA clones for barley chymotrypsin inhibitor 1 (CI-1) have been isolated from an endosperm-specific cDNA library. Hybridization and nucleotide sequence analyses indicate that these cDNAs represent two distinct types of CI-1 mRNA which we have called CI-1A and CI-1B. Both mRNAs encode polypeptides of 83 residues (M r=8790 and 8960) which differ at eleven positions. The full-length cDNA sequences do not predict N-terminal signal peptide extensions indicating that CI-1 is synthesized in the mature form in contrast to the homologous proteinase inhibitors of tomato and potato. Northern hybridization experiments show that the CI-1 genes are under strict developmental and organ-specific control. CI-1 transcripts were first detected in the developing barley endosperm between 12 and 14 days after anthesis but no CI-1-related sequences were detected in the RNA preparations from shoots, leaves or roots. The expression of CI-1 was also studied in the high-lysine barley mutants Hiproly, Risø 56 and Risø 1508. Approximately 15-fold (Hiproly) and 4-fold (Risø 56 and 1508) higher levels of CI-1 mRNA were detected in the mutant endosperms compared to normal barley. These results correlate well with the increased deposition of CI-1 in the high-lysine lines and show that the differential expression is controlled mainly at the level of transcription or stability of the mRNA. Using Southern-blots of barley DNA we estimate that there are three copies of CI-1 per haploid genome in both normal and mutant barley lines.