Functional Analysis of Abscisic Acid 8′-Hydroxylase

Abscisic acid (ABA) plays an important role in the control of seed dormancy and germination. Identification of hormone metabolism genes from a particular plant species of interest is an essential step in hormone research. The function of these gene products is validated by biochemical analysis using heterologous expression systems, such as E. coli and yeast. ABA 8'-hydroxylase is a subfamily of P450 monooxygenases and is encoded by CYP707A genes. CYP707A catalyzes the committed step in the major ABA catabolic pathway. In this chapter, we describe the methods for RNA extraction from seeds, cloning the CYP707A cDNAs, protein expression in yeast, and biochemical analysis of their gene products.