Defensin,existing in the right arm of the second chromosome of drosophila melanogaster,encodes a product which possesses an anti-bacterial peptide activity and resists Gram-positive bacteria.
Homology analysis by BLAST online revealed that the clone F993-G10-A10-deduced encoding protein was similar to Vitellogenin structural genes (yolk protein genes) protein 1 of Caenorhabditis elegans.
Recent studies indicate an increased frequency of mutations in the gene encoding glucocerebrosidase (GBA), a deficiency of which causes Gaucher's disease, among patients with Parkinson's disease.
Zoa was first isolated from Z. officinale, which belongs to Zingiberaceae family.The full-length cDNA of zoa was 768bp with an opening reading frame of 510bp encoding a protein with 169 amino acids.