Frankfurt am Main, Germany
June 21, 2002

Lutz Nover and colleagues at the Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Johann Wolgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main have identified a protein called HsfA1 as a master regulator of the tomato heat stress response. HsfA1 is a heat stress transcription factor that activates the expression of genes that encode heat stress proteins.

HsfA1 has a unique function as master regulator for induced thermotolerance", say Nover and co-workers. Further understanding of the tomato heat stress response will be of great interest to agricultural biotechnologists as they look for ways to manipulate tomato growth and ripening.

The paper, "In the complex family of heat stress transcription factors HsfA1 has a unique role as master regulator of thermotolerance in tomato" by Shravan Kumar Mishra, Joanna Tripp, Sybille Winkelhaus, Bettina Tschiersch, Klaus Theres, Lutz Nover, and Klaus-Dieter Scharf appears in Genes & Development.

For more information, e-mail nover@cellbiology.uni-frankfurt.de