Primary structure and developmental expression of Fbn-1, the mouse fibrillin gene.
Previous studies have reported > 10 kilobases of human fibrillin-1 cDNA sequence, but a consensus regarding the 5' end of the transcript remains to be worked out. One approach to developing a clear consensus would be to search for regions of evolutionary conservation in transcripts from a related species such as mouse. As reported here, the mouse fibrillin-1 transcript encodes a highly conserved polypeptide of 2,871 amino acids. The upstream sequence that flanks the ATG is considerably less well conserved, however. Indeed, the ATG codon (which occurs in the context of a Kozak consensus sequence and is located just upstream of a consensus signal peptide) signals the point where human and mouse fibrillin-1 sequences cease to be nearly identical. Together, these results are consistent with previous efforts by Pereira et al. (Pereira, L., D'Alessio, M., Ramirez, F., Lynch, J. R., Sykes, B., Pangilinan, T., and Bonadio, J. (1993) Human Mol. Genet. 2, 961-968) to identify the human fibrillin-1 translational start site. Sequences immediately upstream of the ATG are GC-rich and devoid of TATA and CCAAT boxes, which suggests that the mouse fibrillin-1 gene will be broadly expressed. A survey of expression in mouse embryo tissues is consistent with this hypothesis and suggests two novel functions for fibrillin-associated microfibrils in non-elastic connective tissues.
Yin
W
W
Department of Pathology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 48109-0650.
Smiley
E
E
Germiller
J
J
Sanguineti
C
C
Lawton
T
T
Pereira
L
L
Ramirez
F
F
Bonadio
J
J
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D005075:Biological Evolution; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D016384:Consensus Sequence; D017124:Conserved Sequence; D004622:Embryo, Mammalian / Q000378:metabolism; D005314:Embryonic and Fetal Development; D005091:Exons; D016326:Extracellular Matrix Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D000071838:Fibrillin-1; D000071837:Fibrillins; D015870:Gene Expression; D015698:Genomic Library; D015186:Hominidae / Q000235:genetics; D006801:Humans; D017403:In Situ Hybridization; D051379:Mice / Q000235:genetics*; D008840:Microfilament Proteins / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000235:genetics*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009928:Organ Specificity; D014176:Protein Biosynthesis; D015183:Restriction Mapping; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid; D014158:Transcription, Genetic; D054392:Adipokines
D016326:Extracellular Matrix Proteins; D000071838:Fibrillin-1; D000071837:Fibrillins; D008840:Microfilament Proteins; C000605722:FBN1 protein, human; D054392:Adipokines; C000605724:Fbn1 protein, mouse