The present invention provides an enzyme which catalyzes a reaction to
transfer sugar to a hydroxyl group at position 2' of chalcones and a gene
thereof, and preferably an enzyme which catalyzes a reaction to transfer
glucose to a hydroxyl group at position 2' of the chalcones. Furthermore,
the invention provides a plant whose flower color has been changed using
the glycosyltransferase.
Using probes corresponding to conservative regions of the
glycosyltransferase, some tens of glycosyltransferase genes having
nucleotide sequences corresponding to the conservative regions were
cloned from flower petal cDNA libraries of carnation and the like.
Furthermore, each of the glycosyltransferase genes was expressed in
Escherichia coli, activity to transfer glucose to position 2' of the
chalcone, i.e., the glycosyltransferase activity at position 2' of
chalcone was confirmed in an extract solution of the Escherichia coli,
and it was confirmed that cloned genes encoded the glycosyltransferase at
position 2'.