GENE ORGANIZATION OF THE PREGNANCY-SPECIFIC GLYCOPROTEIN REGION ON HUMAN-CHROMOSOME-19 - ASSEMBLY AND ANALYSIS OF A 700-KB COSMID CONTIG SPANNING THE REGION

The pregnancy-specific glycoprotein (PSG) gene family consists of 11 c losely related genes that form a subgroup of the carcinoembryonic anti gen (CEA) gene family on 19q13.2. Using a high-resolution restriction fragment fingerprinting technique, we have assembled 256 cosmids from the PSG region into a single 700-kb contig. Fluorescence in situ hybri dization to sperm pronuclei and cosmid walking experiments indicated t hat this PSG contig was directly telomeric of CGM8 at the telomeric en d of the CEA subgroup gene cluster. Detailed restriction mapping and h ybridization with gene-specific probes indicated that the order of the 11 previously identified PSG genes is en-PSG3-PSG8-PSG12-PSQ1-PSG6-PS G7-PSG13-PSG2-PSG5- PSG4-PSG11-tel. The CEA subgroup gene CGM11 is loc ated at the telomeric end of the PSG gene cluster. The PSG genes are a ll oriented in tandem with the 5'-3' direction of transcription from t elomere to centromere. The detailed map also led to the identification of seven new CEA family genes in this region. One of these (CGM12), l ocated between CGM8 and PSG3, is a member of the CEA subgroup. The rem aining six (CGM13 through CGM18) are interspersed among the PSG genes and appear to form a third distinct subgroup within the CEA gene famil y. (C) 1994 Academic Press, Inc.