title: Vasoactive intestinal peptide gene: putative mechanism of information storage at the RNA level.
abstract: The human gene coding for vasoactive intestinal peptide was recently isolated and shown to contain seven exons. We now demonstrate that an intron-containing precursor RNA can be the major vasoactive intestinal peptide-related RNA in the cell, which is in contrast to most known genes. By RNA blot analysis using a variety of genomic and cDNA-related probes we show that in a human tumor producing vasoactive intestinal peptide, most of the RNA encoding the peptide is of the precursor type. Similar precursor transcripts were found in total rat brain RNA as well. A proof of the identity of the intron-containing RNA, cDNA clones corresponding to this RNA sequence have been isolated.
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D001923:Brain Chemistry; D002460:Cell Line; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D004247:DNA / Q000235:genetics; D005091:Exons; D006801:Humans; D007438:Introns; D008970:Molecular Weight; D009062:Mouth Neoplasms; D009693:Nucleic Acid Hybridization; D012313:RNA / Q000235:genetics*; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000235:genetics; D051381:Rats; D014660:Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D012333:RNA, Messenger; D014660:Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide; D012313:RNA; D004247:DNA