Isolation of CHS Gene from Brunfelsia acuminata Flowers and Its Regulation in Anthocyanin Biosysthesis.

Chalcone synthase gene () from flowers was isolated using RT-PCR and RACE. The coding region of the gene is 1425-bp with an open reading frame of 1170-bp, 73-bp 5'UTR, and 172-bp 3'UTR. Its deduced protein does not have a signal peptide but does contain a cond_enzyme superfamily domain, and consists of 389 amino acids with a predicted molecular mass of 42,699 Da and a pI of 6.57. The deduced amino acid sequence of BaCHS shares 90%, 88%, 85%, 84% and 79% identity with CHS from , , , and , respectively. The striking color change from dark purple to light purple and ultimately lead to pure white resulted from a decline in anthocyanin content of the petals and was preceded by a decrease in the expression of . Its gene expression was positively correlated with the contents of anthocyanin ( ≤ 0.01).