Abstract

The extracellular, acidic pathogenesis-related protein, PR-4, was purified to homogeneity from leaves of Nicotiana tabacum infected with tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) and characterized by partial amino acid sequencing. Complementary DNA clones encoding PR-4 were isolated using an oligonucleotide probe based on the sequence of one of the peptides. The deduced PR-4 protein sequence was found to be related to a family of proteins including hevein and Win-1, which have an amino-terminal lectin domain and a carboxy-terminal domain of unknown function. PR-4 is homologous to the carboxy-terminus of these proteins but does not contain the lectin domain. Thus, the organization of the PR-4 family of proteins is similar to that of the plant chitinase family, in that both contain structural subclasses characterized by the presence or absence of an amino-terminal lectin domain. This observation is consistent with the proposal that the DNA encoding the lectin domain may be capable of transposing to form new genes encoding proteins of more complex, multi-domain structure. The expression of PR-4 mRNA was found to increase dramatically in response to TMV infection and the time course of RNA accumulation was similar to that of other PR proteins.