Abstract :
Studies were conducted at the University of Sussex on the common hyacinth with a view to isolating and sequencing some of the genes that govern starch metabolism in this geophyte. Results indicated that the sequence generated for starch phosphorylase from hyacinth was similar to the sequences of this enzyme from a number of plants, but that of sweet potato was the closest in terms of similarity. In fact, this sequence is well conserved, and is identical at the protein level to that of sweet potato. The sequence generated for starch synthase, however, was similar to the starch synthase sequence from Sorghum bicolour. The sequences generated from this study could be used to redesign primers which could have been used to get bigger part of the gene from hyacinth DNA. The inserts could be used to probe a hyacinth genomic library to get the whole genes or to design primers which could be used for RT-PCR analysis to investigate the expression of these genes.
