Plant folate biosynthetic genes

Abstract

This invention relates to an isolated nucleic acid fragment encoding a folate biosynthetic enzyme. The invention also relates to the construction of a chimeric gene encoding all or a portion of the folate biosynthetic enzyme, in sense or antisense orientation, wherein expression of the chimeric gene results in production of altered levels of the folate biosynthetic enzyme in a transformed host cell.

What is claimed is:  
     
         1 . An isolated polynucleotide comprising: 
 (a) a nucleotide sequence encoding a polypeptide having tetrahydrofolylpolyglutamate synthase/folylpolyglutamate synthase activity, wherein the amino acid sequence of the polypeptide and the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO:8 have at least 80% sequence identity based on the Clustal alignment method, or    (b) the complement of the nucleotide sequence.    
     
     
         2 . The polynucleotide of  claim 1 , wherein the amino acid sequence of the polypeptide and the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO:8 have at least 85% sequence identity based on the Clustal alignment method.  
     
     
         3 . The polynucleotide of  claim 1 , wherein the amino acid sequence of the polypeptide and the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO:8 have at least 90% sequence identity based on the Clustal alignment method.  
     
     
         4 . The polynucleotide of  claim 1 , wherein the amino acid sequence of the polypeptide and the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO:8 have at least 95% sequence identity based on the Clustal alignment method.  
     
     
         5 . The polynucleotide of  claim 1 , wherein the nucleotide sequence comprises the nucleotide sequence of SEQ ID NO:7.  
     
     
         6 . The polynucleotide of  claim 1 , wherein the polypeptide comprises the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO:8.  
     
     
         7 . A chimeric gene recombinant DNA construct comprising the polynucleotide of  claim 1  operably linked to a regulatory sequence.  
     
     
         8 . A method for transforming a cell comprising transforming a plant cell with the polynucleotide of  claim 1 .  
     
     
         9 . A cell comprising the chimeric gene recombinant DNA construct of  claim 7 .  
     
     
         10 . A method for producing a plant comprising transforming a plant cell with the polynucleotide of  claim 1  and regenerating a plant from the transformed plant cell.  
     
     
         11 . A plant comprising the chimeric gene recombinant DNA construct of  claim 7 .  
     
     
         12 . A seed comprising the chimeric gene recombinant DNA construct of  claim 7.