Jan. Batista et al., CHARACTERIZATION OF A TRYPANOSOMA-CRUZI POLY(A)-BINDING PROTEIN AND ITS GENES, Molecular and biochemical parasitology, 67(2), 1994, pp. 301-312
We have characterized the biochemical properties of a 66-kDa poly(A)-b
inding protein (PABP1) in the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi and isolated
two classes of cDNAs encoding the protein. In concordance, Southern b
lots showed the presence of 2 gene copies. The two cDNA classes differ
in the length of adenosine-rich segments in the 5' untranslated regio
n and in point changes scattered throughout the sequence, but their 16
50-bp open reading frames encode identical proteins. A single mRNA of
5.5 kb was detected, indicating that the noncoding regions are unusual
ly long. Both the mRNA and the protein are constitutively expressed in
all stages of T. cruzi life cycle. The biochemical properties and seq
uence comparisons show that the T. cruzi PABP1 is similar to the PABP1
of other eukaryotic organisms. These results indicate that PABP1 has
been conserved throughout eukaryotic evolution.