THE MOUSE CD69 GENE - STRUCTURE, EXPRESSION, AND MAPPING TO THE NK GENE-COMPLEX

CD69 is a rapidly induced T cell activation Ag that is also expressed in an inducible fashion on cells of most, if not all, hematopoietic li neages. Molecular cloning has shown that CD69 is a type II-membrane gl ycoprotein that is a member of the C-type lectin family. In this repor t we have shown that induction of CD69 mRNA in activated murine thymoc ytes and T cells is very rapid, peaking between 30 and 60 min poststim ulation, and transient, dropping to nearly resting levels by 8 h. An a nalysis of the mouse CD69 gene structure showed the gene to consist of 5 exons and have a phorbol ester-inducible promoter element within th e first 700 bp upstream of the start of transcription. Chromosomal map ping placed the mouse CD69 gene on the long arm of chromosome 6 near t he NK gene complex that contains the related NKR-P1 and Ly-49 gene fam ilies. The human CD69 gene mapped to chromosome 12p13 near the related NKG2 gene cluster and in a region associated with rearrangements in a pproximately 10% of cases of childhood acute lymphocytic leukemia.