TY - JOUR
T1 - Genomic organization of the mouse reelin gene
AU - Royaux, Ines
AU - De Rouvroit, Catherine Lambert
AU - D'Arcangelo, Gabriella
AU - Demirov, Dimiter
AU - Goffinet, Andre M.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank T. Curran for contributing unpublished results and reagents, T. Huynh-Thu for DNA sequencing, and G. Baudoux for helpful discussion. We also thank C. Dernoncourt and D. Ruelle for their technical support. I.R. is a recipient of a fellowship from the Fonds de la Recherche pour l'Industrie et l'Agriculture (FRIA). G.D. was supported by National Service Award NS09698 from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, by National Institute of Health Cancer Center Support CORE Grant P30CA21765, and by the American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities. This work was supported by grants from the Fonds de la Recherche Scienti®que MeÂdicale (FRSM) 3.4533.95 and 9.4580.95, from the Actions de Re-cherches ConcerteÂe 94/99-186, and from the Fondation MeÂdicale Reine Elisabeth, all from Belgium.
PY - 1997/12/1
Y1 - 1997/12/1
N2 - Reelin is the protein defective in reeler mice, an extensively studied model of brain development. The reelin gene (symbol Reln) codes for a protein of the extracellular matrix that contains eight successive repeats of 350 to 390 amino acids. In this work, we describe the genomic structure of the mouse reelin gene and the 5'-flanking genomic DNA sequences. The reelin gene is composed of 65 exons spread over approximately 450 kb of genomic DNA. We identified different reelin transcripts, formed by alternative splicing of a microexon as well as by use of two different polyadenylation sites. All splice sites conform to the GT-AG rule, except for the splice donor site of intron 30, which is GC instead of GT. A processed pseudogene is present in intron 42. Its nucleotide sequence is 86% identical to the sequence of the rat RDJ1 cDNA, which codes for a DnaJ-like protein of the Hsp40 family. Comparison of 8 intron positions in mouse and human reelin genes reveals a highly conserved genomic structure, suggesting a similar structure of the whole gene in both species. We identified two transcription start sites embedded within a CpG. The promoter region contains putative recognition sites for the transcription factors Sp1 and AP2 but lacks TATA and CAAT boxes. The presence of tandemly repeated regions in the Reelin protein suggests that gene duplication events occurred during evolution. By comparison of the amino acid sequences of the eight repeats and the positions of introns, we suggest a model for the evolution of the repeat coding portion of the reelin gene from a putative ancestral minigene.
AB - Reelin is the protein defective in reeler mice, an extensively studied model of brain development. The reelin gene (symbol Reln) codes for a protein of the extracellular matrix that contains eight successive repeats of 350 to 390 amino acids. In this work, we describe the genomic structure of the mouse reelin gene and the 5'-flanking genomic DNA sequences. The reelin gene is composed of 65 exons spread over approximately 450 kb of genomic DNA. We identified different reelin transcripts, formed by alternative splicing of a microexon as well as by use of two different polyadenylation sites. All splice sites conform to the GT-AG rule, except for the splice donor site of intron 30, which is GC instead of GT. A processed pseudogene is present in intron 42. Its nucleotide sequence is 86% identical to the sequence of the rat RDJ1 cDNA, which codes for a DnaJ-like protein of the Hsp40 family. Comparison of 8 intron positions in mouse and human reelin genes reveals a highly conserved genomic structure, suggesting a similar structure of the whole gene in both species. We identified two transcription start sites embedded within a CpG. The promoter region contains putative recognition sites for the transcription factors Sp1 and AP2 but lacks TATA and CAAT boxes. The presence of tandemly repeated regions in the Reelin protein suggests that gene duplication events occurred during evolution. By comparison of the amino acid sequences of the eight repeats and the positions of introns, we suggest a model for the evolution of the repeat coding portion of the reelin gene from a putative ancestral minigene.
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U2 - 10.1006/geno.1997.4983
DO - 10.1006/geno.1997.4983
M3 - Article
C2 - 9417911
AN - SCOPUS:0000953698
VL - 46
SP - 240
EP - 250
JO - Genomics
JF - Genomics
SN - 0888-7543
IS - 2
ER -