Molecular cloning and characterization of multiple isoforms of the snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis L.) lectin

Screening of a copy-DNA (cDNA) library constructed from RNA isolated from young developing ovaries of snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis) resulted in the isolation of five lectin clones which clearly differed from each other with regard to their nucleotide sequence and deduced amino-acid sequence. Sequence comparison between the coding regions of different lectin cDNAs revealed the highest homology between lectin clones LECGNA 3 and LECGNA 5, showing 96.4% and 93.6% similarity at the nucleotide level and at the deduced amino-acid level, respectively, whereas lectin clones LECGNA 1 and LECGNA 3 showed the lowest homology of 81.6% and 68.6% for the nucleotide sequence and the amino-acid sequence, respectively. Only very few lectin cDNA clones containing a polyadenylated tail could be isolated. Moreover all these cDNA clones were derived from isolectin 3 and showed some variability within the length of the 3' untranslated region. The major transcription initiation site was located 30 bases upstream from the AUG codon as could be deduced from primer-extension analysis. Taking into account the small 5' untranslated region of the lectin clones, the size of the lectin mRNA, which is approx. 780 nucleotides as determined by Northern blot analysis, is in good agreement with the length of the cDNA clones isolated. Besides the ovary tissue, both the leaf and the flower tissue were also shown to express the lectin mRNA in a flowering snowdrop plant.