Abstract
The rbcL promoter of C. reinhardtii has been reported to lack a functional -35 consensus motif common to the ó70 type promoters found in prokaryotes and many plastid promoters, while retaining a conserved ó70 like -10 promoter element. Furthermore, sequences located within the first 63 bp of the rbcL 5 UTR were reported to be essential to the rbcL basal promoter (Klein et al., 1994). A similar promoter structure was reported for the atpB gene of C. reinhardtii (Klein et al., 1992), suggesting a separate class of chloroplast promoter in this organism. This study looks at how specific mutations in the 5 UTR region of the rbcL gene affect RNA transcript levels in C. reinhardtii harbouring chimeric gene constructs containing the putative rbcL promoter 5 fused to a GUS reporter gene terminated by a 3 sequence from the C. reinhardtii psbA gene.