J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 262, Issue 36, 17370-17373, Dec, 1987
Characterization of a Drosophila cDNA clone that encodes a 252-amino acid non-muscle tropomyosin isoform
PD Hanke, HM Lepinske and RV Storti
Department of Biological Chemistry, University of Illinois College of Medicine, Chicago 60612.
We report here the isolation and DNA sequence of a cDNA clone encoding a
252-amino acid non-muscle or cytoskeletal tropomyosin (cTm) isoform from
Drosophila. The Drosophila cTm shows considerable homology with vertebrate
cTm throughout the middle portion of the molecule. The amino- terminal end
of the molecule, however, shows less homology and contains five more amino
acids than the equine platelet and human tropomyosins. There is also a
proline at position 6 in the Drosophila protein. The carboxyl-terminal 27
amino acids also show little homology with vertebrate non-muscle
tropomyosins. This is a region of the molecule that shows considerably
diversity among other Drosophila tropomyosins and vertebrate tropomyosins.
A comparison of the DNA sequence of the cTm cDNA and a previously reported
muscle tropomyosin II cDNA sequence shows regions of identical DNA sequence
alternating with regions of nonidentical sequence, suggesting that both
mRNAs are produced by alternate splicing of the same gene.