have been investigated. Microsomes from transformed yeast catalysed trans-cinnamate hydroxylation with high efficiency. CYP73 was highly specific for its natural substrate, and did not catalyse oxygenation of p-coumarate, benzoate, ferulate, naringenin or furanocoumarins. No metabolism of terpenoids or fatty acids, known substrates of plant P450s, was observed. CYP73 however demethylated the natural coumarin herniarin into umbelliferone. In addition, it was shown to oxygenate five xenobiotics and mechanism-based inactivators, including the herbicide chlorotoluron. All substrates of CYP73 were small planar aromatic molecules. Comparison of the kinetic parameters of CYP73 for its various substrates showed that, as expected, cinnamate was by far the best substrate of this P450. The physiological and toxicological significance of these observations are discussed.Cytochromes P450 form a large superfamily of several hundreds to several thousands of hemoproteins, involved in oxygen activation and oxygen tranfer into lipophilic molecules. They all share some sequence identity related to their common catalytic properties, i.e. heme and oxygen binding, electron transfer and oxygen activation [l]. Differences in their primary sequences usually reflect variations in specificity for substrates oxygenated. These differences may concern more than 80% of the amino acid sequence. However, the modification of a single amino acid residue can be sufficient to completely alter the substrate specificity of the enzyme 121.Full-length amino acid sequences presently available for plant P450s share less than 30% identity. This almost certainly implies great differences in the structures of their substrate binding sites. However, no relation between the structure of the enzymes and their catalytic activities has yet been established. CYP73 is the first DNA sequence coding for a plant P450 with an identified physiological function to have been isolated 131. It catalyses the 4-hydroxylation of trunscinnamic acid into p-coumaric acid. This hydroxylation is ductase (4-hydroxylating) (EC 1.14.13.11).the second reaction in the phenylpropanoid pathway. Cinnamate 4-hydroxylase (CA4H) is thus an obligatory step for the biosynthesis of lignin, a major component of the earth's total biomass. It is involved in the formation of most of the phenylpropanoid derivatives, essential for plant development, pigmentation and defense against both ultraviolet light and pathogens. Recent data [4-61 suggest that CA4H plays a central role in the regulation of the phenylpropanoid pathway. We, therefore, decided to establish more precisely which molecules are transformed by the enzyme or interfere with its catalytic activity. The determination of a population of substrates was also intended to provide information for analysis of the structurelfunction relationship of this plant P450. We devised an optimized system for the expression of CYP73 in Saccharomyces cerevisae [7]. This system provided yeast microsomes for which the only detectable P450 was CYP73. It routine...