Gene Structure of the Murine N-Methyl D-Aspartate Receptor Subunit NR2C

Bettina Suchanek; Peter H. Seeburg; Rolf Sprengel

doi:10.1074/jbc.270.1.41

Gene Structure of the Murine N-Methyl D-Aspartate Receptor Subunit NR2C (*)

From the Laboratory of Molecular Neuroendocrinology, Center for Molecular Biology (ZMBH), University of Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 282, 69120 Heidelberg, Federal Republic of Germany

↵^¶ To whom correspondence and reprint requests should be addressed. Tel.: 49-6221-566892; Fax: 49-6221-565894; sprengel{at}sun0.urz.uni-heidelberg.de.

Abstract

The murine N-methyl D-aspartate receptor subunit NR2C (-3) is encoded by a unique gene composed of 12 translated and three 5′-untranslated exons that spread over 20 kilobases of genomic sequence. The GC-rich promoter that lacks TATA- and CAAT-positioning elements has two transcriptional start sites separated by 18 base pairs. One of these sites is located in a conserved initiator motif and, together with the first four exons, specifies the 5′-untranslated sequence of 772 nucleotides. In this sequence, two alternative splice variants were detected that show identical expression patterns in adult mouse brain. Comparison of intron positions in genes encoding different members of the glutamate receptor family confirms a close evolutionary relationship of the NR2C and NMDAR1 subunit genes.

Footnotes

↵^§ Recipient of a doctoral fellowship from the Fonds der Chemischen Industrie.
↵* This work was supported in part by Grant BCT 364 from the Bundesministerium für Forschung und Technologie and Grant SFB 317/B9 from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore by hereby marked “advertisement” in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.