title: Epiplakin gene analysis in mouse reveals a single exon encoding a 725-kDa protein with expression restricted to epithelial tissues.
abstract: Based on cDNA cloning and sequencing, human epiplakin has been classified as a member of the plakin protein family of cytolinkers. We report here the characterization of the mouse epiplakin gene locus and the isolation of full-length mouse epiplakin cDNA using BAC vectors. We found that the protein is encoded by a single remarkably large exon (>20 kb) that consists of a series of 0.8-1.5-kb-long DNA repeats, eight of which are virtually identical. Consequently, mouse epiplakin contains 16 plakin repeat domains, three more than reported for the human protein and eight more than predicted for the mouse protein based on the contig characterized by the Mouse Genome Sequencing Consortium. Using antibodies raised to a highly conserved repeating epiplakin sequence domain, we show that the protein in cells is expressed in its full length (725 kDa), and we provide evidence that the size of human epiplakin previously may have been underestimated. In addition we show on transcript and protein levels that epiplakin is restricted to epithelial tissues and that its gene maps to mouse chromosome 15 (human chromosome 8). This study lays the groundwork for future genetic approaches aimed at defining the biological role of this unique protein.
authors.affiliation: Vienna Biocenter, Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Cell Biology, University of Vienna, A-1030 Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Spazierer
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Fuchs
authors.forename: Verena
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Pröll
authors.forename: Lubomir
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Janda
authors.forename: Susanne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Oehler
authors.forename: Irmgard
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Fischer
authors.forename: Rudolf
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hauptmann
authors.forename: Gerhard
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Wiche
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001324:Autoantigens / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics*; D002874:Chromosome Mapping; D018076:DNA, Complementary; D004848:Epithelium / Q000378:metabolism; D005091:Exons; D006801:Humans; D051379:Mice; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D012091:Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid
chemical_list: D001324:Autoantigens; D018076:DNA, Complementary; C426678:epiplakin