A novel gene of tomato preferentially expressed in fruit encodes a protein with a Ca2+-dependent lipid-binding domain.

A cDNA clone, called CLB1, was isolated from a cDNA library from tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) and characterized. The CLB1 cDNA contains an open reading frame of 1518 bp, and encodes a putative protein of 506 amino acids with a predicted molecular mass of 54,633 Da. The deduced CLB1 amino acid sequence contains a domain that exhibits from 26% to 37% identity with the Ca2+-dependent lipid-binding domains of cytosolic phospholipase A2, protein kinase C, Rabphilin-3A, and Synaptotagmin 1 of animals. Southern blot analysis indicates that the CLB1 gene belongs to a small gene family in the tomato genome. The CLB1 mRNA is preferentially expressed in fruit tissues.