Isolation of a new dual-functional caffeine synthase gene encoding an enzyme for the conversion of 7-methylxanthine to caffeine from coffee (Coffea arabica L.)¹<FN ID="FN1"><NO>1</NO>The nucleotide sequence data reported here will appear in the EMBL, GenBank and DDBJ Nucleotide Sequence Databases under the accession numbers AB086414 (CCS1) and AB086415 (CtCS7).</FN>

Mizuno, Kouichi; Okuda, Akira; Kato, Misako; Yoneyama, Naho; Tanaka, Hiromi; Ashihara, Hiroshi; Fujimura, Tatsuhito

In coffee and tea plants, caffeine is synthesized from xanthosine via a pathway that includes three methylation steps. We report the isolation of a bifunctional coffee caffeine synthase (CCS1) clone from coffee endosperm by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RACE) technique using previously reported sequence information for theobromine synthases (CTSs). The predicted amino acid sequences of CCS1 are more than 80% identical to CTSs and are about 40% similar to those of tea caffeine synthase (TCS1). Interestingly, CCS1 has dual methylation activity like tea TCS1.

METHYLATION; CAFFEINE

FEBS Letters, 2003, Vol 534, Issue 1-3, p75

0014-5793

Academic Journal

10.1016/S0014-5793(02)03781-X