CHROMOSOMAL LOCALIZATION AND EXPRESSION PATTERN OF THE RNASE-L INHIBITOR GENE

2-5A-Dependent RNase (RNase L), an important component of the 2-5A pat hway, is directly implicated in the molecular mechanism of interferon action. We have cloned and sequenced following immunoscreening, a full -length cDNA that encodes the RNase L inhibitor (RLI), Northern blot a nalysis from a variety of human tissues revealed that two transcript f orms (3.8 kb and 2.4 kb) are ubiquitously expressed but differences in levels of expression suggest a tissue-specific regulation, The RLI ge ne was localized to locus 4q31 by in situ hybridization indicating tha t this gene and other enzymes of the 2-5A pathway are not organized in cluster in the human genome.