[en] To increase our understanding on the role of Gibberellin (GA) metabolism in oil palm (Elaeis guineensis), a gene encoding enzyme in GA catabolic pathways was identified and isolated. The oligonucleotide primers were constructed and used to amplify the EgGA2ox6 gene from oil palm. The sequence analysis of EgGA2ox6 gene provided a complete open reading frame (ORF) of 1014 bp which encodes 337 deduced amino acid residues. Homology sequence analysis has shown a 50 %-70 % sequence similarity to GA from other plant species. Based on this sequence motif analysis, the EgGA2ox6 is classified into C19-GA2ox group. Expression studies on 13 different oil palm tissues showed that the highest expression profile of the gene was observed in the mesocarp tissue. Further expression analysis was conducted on the development stages of mesocarp using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) showed that the gene was predominantly expressed in the early stages of mesocarp development at four weeks after anthesis (WAA). Then, the expression of EgGA2ox6 gene was gradually reduced as the fruit ripened. This preliminary study provides valuable resources to further elucidate the roles of GA2ox6 gene during oil palm fruit development. (author)

[en] A previous study on transient expression of oil palm tissues has shown that the oil palm metallothionein- like type 3 (MT3-A) gene promoter is specifically expressed in the mesocarp and not in other tissues. This study was conducted to determine whether or not Arabidopsis can be used as a model system to study oil palm promoter. Functional characterisation of the oil palm MT3-A promoter was performed using promoter: GUS fusion analysis in transgenic Arabidopsis. The localisation of beta-glucuronidase (GUS) expression in several different tissues of transgenic Arabidopsis homozygous lines driven by the oil palm MT3-A promoter was determined. Histochemical GUS analysis in transgenic Arabidopsis revealed the highest expression in the cotyledon and hypocotyls as well as at the early stage of plant development and gradually decreased as the plant grew. Lower expression was detected in organs of mature plant and no expression was observed in reproductive tissues. This observation may suggest that MT3-A promoter might be involved during early stage of plant development. Since we use Arabidopsis which is neither a fruit nor mesocarp plant to check mesocarp-specific promoter it might not give a faithful pattern of expression but it may be suited to study oil palm specific promoter derived from other tissues. (author)