Annual Report 2006

Fig. 1
Comparison of photoperception modes of
phytochromes between in rice and in
In phyA is mainly responsible for the
VLFR, whereas phyA is involved in both VLFR and R
/FR reversible LFR in rice. FR-HIR: Far Red-High
Irradiance Response; VLFR: Very Low Fluence
Response; LFR: Low Fluence Responce.
Fig. 2
Flowering times of various phytochrome mutants under
long day conditions
Monogenic mutation had little effect on the
flowering time. The mutation, however, in
combination with or mutation caused
dramatic early flowering.
Transgenic rice for allergy immunotherapy:
Oral feeding of rice seeds expressing T cell
epitopes suppresses clinical symptoms
in a mouse model of pollen allergy
Lijun YANG, Fumio TAKAIWA and Hidenori TAKAGI
Plant Biotechnology Department
Immunotherapy using allergen-specific T
cell epitopes is a safe and effective treatment
for the control of IgE-mediated allergic
diseases, such as Japanese cedar pollinosis. We
developed transgenic rice plants expressing T
cell epitopes of Cry j I and Cry j II allergens of
Japanese cedar pollen as a fusion protein with
the soybean glycinin (Fig. 1). Under the control
of the rice seed storage protein glutelin GluB-1
promoter, the fusion protein was specifically
expressed and accumulated in seeds at a level
of 0.5 % of the total seed protein.
Fig. 1
A schematic illustration of the transformation plasmid