Recovery of a soybean urease genomic clone by sequential library screening with two synthetic oligodeoxynucleotides

We report the first isolation of a low-copy-number gene from a complex higher plant (soybean) genome by direct screening with synthetic oligodeoxynucleotide (oligo) probes. A synthetic, mixed, 21-nucleotide (nt) oligo (21-1) based on a seven amino acid (aa) sequence from soybean seed urease, was used to screen genomic libraries of soybean (Glycine max [L.] Merr.) in the lambda Charon 4 vector. Twenty homologous clones were recovered from a screen of 500,000 plaques. These were counterscreened with embryo-specific cDNA (15-2 cDNA) made by priming with a second, mixed 15-nt oligo (15-2), based on a Jack bean (Canavalia ensiformis) urease peptide [Takishima et al., J. Natl. Def. Med. Coll. 5 (1980) 19-23]. Five out of 20 clones were homologous to 15-2 cDNA and proved to be identical. Nucleotide sequence analysis of representative clone E15 confirmed that it contained urease sequences. Subclones of E15 homologous to the oligo probes contain a deduced amino acid sequence which matches 108 of 130 aa residues of an amino acid run in a recently published [Mamiya et al., Proc. Jap. Acad. 61B (1985) 359-398] complete protein sequence for Jack-bean seed urease. Using clone E15 as a probe of soybean embryonic mRNA revealed a homologous 3.8-kb species that is the size of the urease messenger. This species is absent from mRNA of embryos of a soybean seed urease-null mutant. However, both urease-positive and urease-null genomes contain the 11-kb DNA fragment bearing urease sequences.