Abstract: The amino acid sequence of metallothionein gene from Casuarina glauca was subjected to local tBlastn searching against the ESTs local datebase of Tamarix androssowii. The full length cDNA encoding metallothionein (MT) gene was obtained. The MT gene was 366 bp in length without its polyA sequence, including 97 bp of 5′untranslated region and 59 bp of 3′untranslated region. It had an open reading frame(ORF) of 210 bp, encoding 70 amino acid residues of which 10 Cys residues distributed at protein N terminal and C terminal. The protein molecular weight was 6.793 kD and theoretical pI was 4.99. The BlastP analysis revealed that amino acids sequence of MT gene from Tamarix androssowii shared the highest similarity with Arachis hypogaea and the lowest similarty with Vigna angularis. The EST sequence of MT gene was accepted by GenBank (accession numbers: CV792539).

Key words: Tamarix androssowii, metallothionein, gene cloning