ORGANIZATION OF THE HUMAN ZETA-CRYSTALLIN QUINONE REDUCTASE GENE (CRYZ)/

zeta-Crystallin is a protein highly expressed in the lens of guinea pi gs and camels, where it comprises about 10% of the total soluble prote in. It has recently been characterized as a novel quinone oxidoreducta se present in a variety of mammalian tissues. We report here the isola tion and characterization of the human zeta-crystallin gene (CRYZ) and its processed pseudogene. The functional gene is composed of nine exo ns and spans about 20 kb. The 5'-flanking region of the gene is rich i n G and C (58%) and lacks TATA and CAAT boxes. Previous analysis of th e guinea pig gene revealed the presence of two different promoters, on e responsible for the high lens-specific expression and the other for expression at the enzymatic level in numerous tissues. Comparative ana lysis with the guinea pig gene shows that a region of similar to 2.5 k b that includes the promoter responsible for the high expression in th e lens in guinea pig is not present in the human gene. (C) 1994 Academ ic Press, Inc.