Differential expression of dehydrin in flower buds of two Japanese apricot cultivars requiring different chilling requirements for bud break.

In this study, we investigated seasonal changes in protein profiles in dormant flower buds of Japanese apricot (Prunus mume Siebold Zucc.) cultivars 'Ellching', from subtropical Taiwan, and 'Nanko', from temperate Japan. One protein, isolated by two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of flower bud extracts, was shown by peptide sequencing to be a dehydrin (the group of D-11 LEA (late embryogenesis-abundant) proteins).