CHARACTERIZATION OF THE MOUSE PANCREATIC MAMMARY-GLAND CHOLESTEROL ESTERASE-ENCODING CDNA AND GENE

Pancreatic cholesterol esterase (CEase) is involved in cholesterol eat er hydrolysis and transport of cholesterol into intestinal cells. Isol ation and sequencing of the mouse CEase cDNA indicates that the murine enzyme is very similar to the human enzyme, with the exception of the highly repeated C-terminal Pro-rich repeats. Reverse transcription-po lymerase chain reaction analysis reveals that the message is synthesiz ed in the pancreas of mice, but not in the liver.