ISOLATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF BOVINE FOLLISTATIN CDNA

Seven bovine follistatin (FS) cDNA clones were from a bovine ovarian f ollicle cDNA The predicted amino acid sequences revealed that six of t he cDNA clones represented an FS precursor of 344 amino acids which co rresponded to a mature FS of 315 amino acids (FS 315), with one cDNA c lone containing the entire coding sequence including 180 nucleotides o f 5' untranslated sequence. The predicted amino acid sequence of the s eventh cDNA clone, which differed in the 3' coding sequence, represent ed a precursor protein of 317 amino acids, corresponding to a mature F S of 288 amino acids (FS 288). This clone encoded an identical amino a cid sequence to the other six cDNA clones except that the C terminal o f FS 315 was truncated by 27 amino acids. The sequence of bovine FS wa s found to contain 36 cysteine residues and 2 potential N-linked glyco sylation sites. The predicted amino acid sequence of bovine FS has ove rall sequence homologies of 98% with ovine FS and 97% with human FS.