CHARACTERIZATION OF A PROCESSED PSEUDOGENE OF HUMAN FAU1 ON CHROMOSOME-18

A member of the human FAU (Finkel-Biskis-Reilly murine sarcoma virus-a ssociated ubiquitously expressed) gene subfamily, encoding the ribosom al protein S30 fused in frame to an ubiquitin-like protein, was cloned , sequenced and analysed. This clone, FAU1P, is a processed pseudogene with a completely intact, although transcriptionally silent, open rea ding frame of 137 codons. FAU1P exhibits an amplification of the (AAG) triplet repeat present in the S30 coding part of FAU. FAU1P is integr ated in an antisense orientation within a sequence homologous to the p romoter of the islet amyloid polypeptide (IAPP or amylin)-encoding gen e. By means of PCR hybrid panel mapping, FAU1P was assigned to chromos ome 18.