LEA5 gene was postulated related with both stress and hormone responses. In an attempt to find genes exclusively expressed during fruit ripening of Cara Cara navel orange, a novel cDNA clone encoding late embryogenesis-abundant protein 5 like gene （CitLEA5-1） was obtained. It was 582 bp in length, containing 97 deduced amino acids. Compared with the stress-induced LEA5 from leaves of Citrus sinensis, CitLEA5-1 had a shorter 3′ untranslated region （UTR）. Semi-quantitative RT-PCR analysis revealed that CitLEA5-1 was transcriptional regulated during fruit ripening of Cara Cara navel orange.
A cDNA library was constructed end characterized from the pulp of Cera Care navel orange （Citrus sinensis Osbeck） at different stages of ripening. Tittering results revealed that approximately 5.086×10^5 independent clones were included in this library. Electrophoresls gel results of 15 randomly selected clones revealed that the size of the insertion fragments ranged from 400 bp to 2 kb, with an average size of 900 bp. Sequencing results of 150 randomly picked clones showed that the recombination rate was 94%. During subsequent sequence analysis, 41 of 139 clones failed to be identified end the amino sequence of 71 clones shared less than 30% identity with related plants in GenBank. Of 27 clones whose amino sequences shared more than 60% identity with other related plants in GenBenk, 17 clones showed an 80% identity with the corresponding candidate genes of citrus. The clone recognized as the type Ⅲ metallothlonein-llke （MT） gene was observed to occur 13 tlmes, Indlcatlng that the protein may play an important role In frult development and rlpenlng.
