Chloroplast-coded atrazine resistance in Solanum nigrum: psbA loci from susceptible and resistant biotypes are isogenic except for a single codon change.

The 32-kDa photosystem II protein of the chloroplast is thought to be a target molecule for the herbicide atrazine. The psbA gene coding for this protein was cloned from Solanum nigrum atrazine-susceptible ('S') and atrazine-resistant ('R') biotypes. The 'S' and 'R' genes are identical in nucleotide sequence except for an A to G transition, predicting a Ser to Gly change at codon 264. The same predicted amino acid change in psbA was previously shown for an Amaranthus hybridus 'S' and 'R' biotypes which had, in addition, two silent nucleotide changes between the genes (Hirschberg, J. and McIntosh, L., Science 222, 1346-1349, 1983). Occurrence of the identical, non-silent change in psbA in different 'S' and 'R' weed biotype pairs suggests a functional, herbicide-related role for this codon position.