STRUCTURE OF THE GENE ENCODING THE SEA-URCHIN BLASTULA PROTEASE-10 (BP10), A MEMBER OF THE ASTACIN FAMILY OF ZN2-METALLOPROTEASES()

Blastula protease 10 (BP10), a metalloprotease of the astacin family, is secreted at the blastula stage by the sea urchin embryo. The BP10 g ene shows a precise temporal and spatial regulation during embryogenes is. It has been cloned from a sea urchin lambda genomic library and th e transcription unit has been entirely sequenced. It spans 6 kb and co ntains seven exons (2.8 kb) and six introns (3.2 kb). Sequence compari son and phylogeny analysis show that BP10 belongs to a sub-family of m odular proteins which ail play a role during development. In the two c ases where the exon/intron organization of the gene is known (BP10 and tolloid), the modular structure of the protein is not reflected at th e gene level, which indicates that this sub-family probably did not ev olve by exon shuffling.