Recently, six genes of the gibberellin (GA) biosynthesis gene cluster in Gibberella fujikuroi were cloned and the functions of five of these genes were determined. Here we describe the function of the sixth gene, P450 -3, and the cloning and functional analysis of a seventh gene, orf3, located at the left border of the gene cluster. We have thereby defined the complete GA biosynthesis gene cluster in this fungus. The predicted amino acid sequence of orf3 revealed no close homology to known proteins. High performance liquid chromatography and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analyses of the culture fluid of knock-out mutants identified GA 1 and GA 4 , rather than GA 3 and GA 7 , as the major C 19 -GA products, suggesting that orf3 encodes the GA 4 1,2-desaturase. This was confirmed by transformation of the SG139 mutant, which lacks the GA biosynthesis gene cluster, with the desaturase gene renamed des. The transformants converted GA 4 to GA 7 , and also metabolized GA 9 (3-deoxyGA 4 ) to GA 120 (1,2-didehydroGA 9 ), but the 2␣-hydroxylated compound GA 40 was the major product in this case. We demonstrate also by gene disruption that P450-3, one of the four cytochrome P450 monooxygenase genes in the GA gene cluster, encodes the 13-hydroxylase, which catalyzes the conversion of GA 7 to GA 3 , in the last step of the pathway. This enzyme also catalyzes the 13-hydroxylation of GA 4 to GA 1 . Disruption of the des gene in an UV-induced P450 -3 mutant produced a double mutant lacking both desaturase and 13-hydroxylase activities that accumulated high amounts of the commercially important GA 4 . The des and P450 -3 genes differ in their regulation by nitrogen metabolite repression. In common with the other five GA biosynthesis genes, expression of the desaturase gene is repressed by high amounts of nitrogen in the culture medium, whereas P450-3 is the only gene in the cluster not repressed by nitrogen.