Isolation of a Gene for a Metallothionein-Like Protein from Soybean

Using a synthetic oligonucleotide that corresponded to the consensus nucleotide sequence of the N-terminal region of mammalian metallothionein as probe, we isolated a cDNA clone from a soybean library. The clone had an ORF that encode a protein of 79 amino acids which showed significant homology to both N- and C-terminal regions of mammalian and Neurospora crassa metallothioneins