Abstract: Emp loying a pair of degenerate primers designed from the conserved domain of plant C3HC4 type and CHY type zinc-finger proteins, a novel zinc-finger protein gene AcRCHY1 was isolated from pineapple.(Ananas comosus) by RACE-PCR and RT-PCR techniques. The full length cDNA has 1 261 bp nucleotides with an open reading frame (ORF) of 918 bp encoding a precursor protein of 306 amino acid residues. AcRCHY1 protein sharing 81% - 91% homology with zinc-finger proteins from other plants contains two conservative zinc finger motif, C3HC4 zinc finger (RING finger) and CHY zinc finger. Semi-quantitive RT-PCR analysis indicated that AcRCHY1 was constitutively expressed in all plant organs, but stronger in ovaries, petals
and florets than in roots and leaves, and the abiotic stresses such as low temperature, high salt , drought (20% PEG6000) and ABA, could trigger a significant induction of AcRCHY1 in leaves. All these results suggest that the AcRCHY1 protein may be involved in the regulation of floral organ growth and development, and play an important role in signal transduction pathway of dependent ABA through responses to cold, high salt and osmotic stresses as a transcrip tion factor.

Key words: p ineapple, zinc2finger protein, AcRCHY1, gene expression