title: Characterization of the chicken transitin gene reveals a strong relationship to the nestin intermediate filament class.
abstract: Our laboratory previously reported that transitin is a radial glial intermediate filament protein sharing the basic structural features common to all intermediate filament (IF) proteins. It contains an alpha-helical core domain flanked by a short nonhelical head and a long COOH-terminal tail. The core sequence of transitin shows the greatest similarity to Xenopus tanabin and to rat and human nestin. We also reported that transitin has multiple splice variants derived from the deletion or inclusion of a leucine-zipper heptad repeat domain in the COOH-terminal tail. In the present study, we provide new evidence to support the classification of nestin and transitin in the same group of IF proteins based on the number and position of its introns. In addition, we suggest that the different isoforms of transitin are produced by a splicing mechanism that recognizes consensus 5' and 3' splice sites contained within the coding sequence of the leucine-zipper heptad repeat domain.
authors.affiliation: Neurobiotechnology Center and Department of Cell Biology, Neurobiology and Anatomy, The Ohio State University, Columbus 43210, USA.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Napier
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.forename: G J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Cole
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D002645:Chickens / Q000235:genetics*; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D016384:Consensus Sequence; D003893:Desmin / Q000235:genetics; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D015698:Genomic Library; D005904:Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D007381:Intermediate Filament Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics*; D016350:Leucine Zippers; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics*; D064231:Nestin; D016900:Neurofilament Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D010802:Phylogeny; D051381:Rats; D015183:Restriction Mapping; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid; D014982:Xenopus laevis
chemical_list: D003893:Desmin; D005904:Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein; D007381:Intermediate Filament Proteins; C577484:NES protein, human; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins; C577486:Nes protein, rat; D064231:Nestin; D016900:Neurofilament Proteins; C061195:neurofilament protein M