It is intended to provide a method of reducing the total amount of stored
protein, to develop a technique required therefor, and to provide a plant
and its seeds developed by the above method and a method of using such a
plant and seeds. More specifically, a nucleic acid molecule containing a
consecutive nucleic acid sequence of at least 15 in length which is
complementary with a nucleic acid sequence encoding prolamin polypeptide
or a nucleic acid sequence having a homology of at least about 70% to the
complementary nucleic acid sequence having at least 15 nucleotide length.
A method of reducing the expression dose of a protein in a seed of a
plant which comprises: A) the step of providing the above-described
nucleic acid molecule; B) the step of transferring the nucleic acid
molecule into the cells of the plant; C) the step of re-differentiating
the cells to construct a transgenic plant; and D) the step of obtaining
seeds from the transgenic plant.