T. Nguyen et al., CLONING, EXPRESSION, AND CHROMOSOMAL LOCALIZATION OF THE HUMAN URIDINE NUCLEOTIDE RECEPTOR GENE, The Journal of biological chemistry, 270(52), 1995, pp. 30845-30848
Extracellular ATP and ADP mediate diverse physiological responses in m
ammalian cells, in part through the activation of G protein-coupled P-
2 purinoceptors. The cloning and expression of cDNAs encoding several
P-2 purinoceptor subtypes have enabled rapid advances in our understan
ding of the structural and functional properties of these receptors. T
he current report de scribes the isolation of a gene from a human geno
mic library that encodes a protein with the greatest similarity to the
human P-2U purinoceptor, a subtype that is distinguished by its abili
ty to be activated by uridine nucleotides as well as adenine nucleotid
es. When expressed in a mammalian cell line, this novel receptor is ac
tivated specifically by UTP and UDP but not by ATP and ADP. Activation
of this uridine nucleotide receptor resulted in increased inositol ph
osphate formation and calcium mobilization. Fluorescence in situ hybri
dization revealed that the gene encoding the uridine nucleotide recept
or is located in region q13 of the X chromosome. Dendrogram analysis o
f the G protein-coupled P-2 purinoceptors and the uridine nucleotide r
eceptor indicates that these receptors belong to a family that may be
more aptly named nucleotide receptors.