XVI International Botanical Congess
We have developed a general approach for identifying components of subcellular structure and dynamics in living plant cells by screening libraries of cDNA fusions to the green fluorescent protein (GFP). Arabidopsis cDNAs were ligated to the 3= end of the GFP coding sequence and introduced into Arabidopsis thaliana using a shotgun transformation approach. Microscopic analysis of 5700 transgenic plants indicated that approximately 2% of lines expressed a fusion protein with a different subcellular distribution than that of soluble GFP. In one instance that illustrates the ultility of screening living cells, we identified a GFP fusion protein that displays a rapid subcellular redistribution after wounding. Our results indicate that shotgun GFP-fusion protein screening may be useful for identifying and visualizing components of diverse subcellular structures in living cells.