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To characterize the acidic endochitinase EP3, able to rescue somatic embryos of the carrot cell line ts11, the enzyme was purified from the medium of wild-type suspension cultures. Peptide sequences, deduced amino acid sequences of corresponding PCR-generated cDNA clones, serological relation and biochemical properties showed that there were at least five closely related chitinases, four of which could be identified as class IV EP3 chitinases with an apparent size of 30 kDa. Two other proteins were identified as a serologically related class I acidic chitinase (DcChitI) of 34 kDa, and a serologically unrelated 29 kDa class II acidic chitinase (DcChitII), respectively. Additional cDNA sequences, Western and Southern analysis showed the presence of a least two, but possibly more, highly homologous class IV EP3 genes in the carrot genome. Two class IV EP3 chitinases were tested and found to be able to increase the number of ts11 globular embryos formed under non-permissive conditions. One of the class IV EP3 chitinases as well as the class I chitinase DcChitI promoted the transition from globular to heart-stage ts11 embryos. The class II endochitinase and a heterologous class IV chitinase from sugar-beet were not active on ts11. This suggests that there are differences in the specificity of chitinases in terms of their effect on plant somatic embryos.

An acidic chitinase (SE) was found to accumulate in leaves of sugar beet (Beta vulgaris) during infection with Cercospora beticola. Two isoforms, SE1 and SE2, with MW of 29 kDa and pI of approximately 3.0 were purified to homogeneity. SE2 is an endochitinase that also exhibits exochitinase activity, i.e., it is capable of hydrolyzing chito-oligosaccharides, including chitobiose, into N-acetyl-glucosamine. Partial amino acid sequence data for SE2 were used to obtain a cDNA clone by polymerase chain reaction. The clone was used to isolate a cDNA clone encoding SE2. The deduced amino acid sequence for SE2 is 58-67% identical to the class III chitinases from cucumber, Arabidopsis, and tobacco. A transient induction of SE2 mRNA during the early stages of infection with C. beticola is much stronger in tolerant plants than in susceptible plants. Transgenic tobacco (Nicotiana benthamiana) plants constitutively accumulate SE2 protein in the intercellular space of their leaves. In a preliminary infection experiment, the transgenic plants did not show increase in resistance against C. nicotianae.