Important Plant Enzymes Identified

When the Brookhaven team "tagged" the isoflavonoid-synthesis enzyme with a green fluorescence protein, they were surprised to find the tagged enzyme localized in the plant cell nucleus (a). This is different from the commonly observed distribution pattern of other enzymes in the same family (c), implicating a potential unexplored biological function of the enzyme in the nucleus. When the protein was shortened, nuclear localization was impaired (b), yielding a different distribution pattern (d). Credit: Brookhaven National Laboratory