Phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL, EC 4.3.1.24) is the key enzyme of the general phenylpropanoid metabolic pathway.A PAL gene, designated as DcPAL1 (GenBank accession number: FJ864719), was cloned from carnation (Dianthus caryophyllus cv.Master) leaves.DcPAL1 has a length of 2,397 bp with an open reading frame of 2,121 bp encoding a protein of 706 amino acids.A typical sequence of PAL enzyme active region and other active sites can be found in the deduced protein.The molecule mass of DcPAL1 was 76.8 kD with estimated pl of 5.84.The identity of DcPAL1 relative to other PALs was 72%~75% and 79%~90% in nucleotide sequence and deduced amino acid sequence respectively.The expression vector PET-28a (+)-DcPAL1 was constructed and expressed in Escherichia coli.The expressed PAL protein exists in the form of an inclusion body.The purified protein was obtained by affinity chromatography using Ni-NTA chelating agarose column.