title: TUBA8: A new tissue-specific isoform of alpha-tubulin that is highly conserved in human and mouse.
abstract: We have cloned and sequenced a cDNA from a human adult skeletal muscle cDNA library, encoding for a novel isoform of alpha-tubulin (tuba8) that is preferentially expressed in heart, skeletal muscle, and testis. A genomic DNA sequence from the chromosomal region 22q11 allowed us to determine the complete structure of the TUBA8 gene that mirrors the canonical exon/intron organization of the vertebrate alpha-tubulin genes. We also cloned and sequenced the cDNA of its murine homologue (MMU-TUBA8). The latter encodes for a protein that differs from its human counterpart in only three amino acids, revealing an extreme rate of conservation that is even extended to both the 3' and 5' UTRs of the mRNAs. Sequence comparison of these novel isoforms with other known alpha tubulins shows that tuba8 is the most divergent member of the mammalian alpha-tubulin family. The sequence peculiarity of the human and murine tuba8 strongly suggests that they might have functional significance and, according to the multi-tubulin hypothesis, that they might play specific functional roles in the cell cytoskeleton.
authors.affiliation: CRIBI Biotechnology Center, Dipartimento di Biologia, Università degli Studi di Padova, viale G. Colombo 3, Padua, 35121, Italy.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Stanchi
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Corso
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Scannapieco
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ievolella
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Negrisolo
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Tiso
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Lanfranchi
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Valle
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D002892:Chromosomes, Human, Pair 22; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D017124:Conserved Sequence; D006801:Humans; D008322:Mammals; D051379:Mice; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000378:metabolism*; D010802:Phylogeny; D020033:Protein Isoforms / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid; D014404:Tubulin / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D020033:Protein Isoforms; C408046:TUBA8 protein, human; C501978:Tuba8 protein, mouse; D014404:Tubulin