Abstract: px19 is an avian gene recently identified as a bromodexoyuridine (BrdU)-sensitive transcript associated with hematopoiesis in early chick development. Its translation product contains an "LEA" (late embryogenesis abundant) motif which had previously been observed only in plant seed proteins. The present invention provides nucleic acids encoding a human LEA motif protein (HuLEAP) homologous to the avian px19 gene product. Also provided are expression vectors, transformed host cells, and methods of using them to produce recombinant HuLEAP polypeptides.