ISOLATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF THE HUMAN INTER-ALPHA-TRYPSIN INHIBITOR FAMILY HEAVY CHAIN-RELATED PROTEIN (IHRP) GENE (ITIHL1)

Inter-alpha-trypsin inhibitor (ITI) family heavy chain-related protein (IHRP) is a novel human glycoprotein that shows Significant homology in amino acid sequence to proteins of the ITI family heavy chains from human plasma, Three overlapping clones that encode the human inter-a- trypsin inhibitor family heavy chain-related protein (IHRP) gene (ITIH L1) were isolated and characterized, The IHRP gene spans 15 kb and is composed of 24 exons from 27 to 207 bp in size with consensus splice s ites, The gene codes for the precursor of IHRP, which is similar to in ter-a-trypsin inhibitor (ITI) family heavy chains, Two major transcrip tion initiation sites were identified in the 5'-flanking region, They contain putative promoter elements, but no typical TATA box, Some exon s of this gene showed significant similarities to those of the ITI-H1 gene in nucleotide length and in intron phasing, The tissue-specific t ranscription of this gene may be due to the presence of binding sites for the hepatocyte nuclear factors LF-A1, HNF-5, NF-ILB, and C/EBP, Th is gene was found to be localized very close to another unknown gene r elated to EST (GenBank accession #: R54643, R50663, R50563, H27139, an d R54913).