How does a plant express its secondary metabolism in the special tissues?

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More than 90% of useful plant metabolites such as medicines, flavors, pigments, food additives etc consumed in Japan have been imported from developing Southeast Asia. In addition, most of these plant metabolites are produced by wild plants. So, stable supply of these metabolites are anxious owing to the decrease of the plant-growing field. The supply should be done by an alternative method such as plant cell cultures. However, most of the useful metabolites can not be produced by the undifferentiated cultured cells ; regulation mechanisms of the plant secondary metabolisms that are formed and accumulated only in a peculiar tissues of plant have not been uncovered yet.Raphanus sativus produces anthocyanins, a red-colored secondary metabolite, in tissues or organs different from cultivar to cultivar. "KOSHIN" radish produces the red pigments inside the underground ; "AKAMARU" radish accumulates them in the outside of the tissue. indicating that this plant is appropriate for studying the regulation mechanism of plant secondary metabolism.The 4 days-old seedlings grown inthe dark start to produce the red pigments 24hr after being moved into the light. The illumination induces anthocyanin formation through yet unknown mechanism. In this study, proteins in the intact seedlings were investigated by 2-D electrophoresis (1 : NEpHGE,2 : SDS-PAGE). An alkaline protein of about 20kDA was found to appear 12hrs before formation of anthocyanin and disappear after the pigment accumulation. This protein might be an enzyme of anthocyanin formation or a regulating enzyme. The peptide sequence was not detected due probably to the derivatization of the N-terminal.