Use of an in silico approach to define the gene structure of eukaryotic adenylyl cyclases.
The limited information available regarding the gene structure of adenylyl cyclases (AC), which catalyze the synthesis of cAMP, suggests a complex arrangement with many exons and large introns such that molecular techniques to define these gene structures are time- and labor-intensive. We report here the use of a computer-based approach involving the assembly of fragmented sequence data generated by the Human Genome Project and nucleic acid analysis software to decipher the gene structure of human and murine AC 6 and other human AC isoforms (ACs 3, 7, and 8). The results, which document 21 exons in human and murine AC 6, human AC 3, 18 exons in AC 8, and 24 exons in AC 7, show substantial conservation of exon organization in the AC family and in particular regions of the AC protein. Application of such in silico methods should prove useful to characterize genes for other ACs and protein families and data provided here should facilitate studies of polymorphisms in AC genes.
Rana
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BK
Department of Pharmacology, 0636, University of California at San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, California, 92093-0636, USA.
Pan
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Insel
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PA
D000262:Adenylyl Cyclases / Q000235:genetics*; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D018076:DNA, Complementary; D006801:Humans
D018076:DNA, Complementary; D000262:Adenylyl Cyclases