STRUCTURE, EXPRESSION AND CHROMOSOMAL LOCALIZATION OF THE GENE ENCODING HUMAN 2',3'-CYCLIC-NUCLEOTIDE 3'-PHOSPHODIESTERASE

Four human genomic DNA clones for 2', 3'-cyclic-nucleotide 3'-phosphod iesterase (CNP) were isolated by screening a human genomic library wit h human CNP cDNA clones as probes. Restriction mapping and sequence an alysis revealed that the human CNP gene is about 8.5 kb long and compo sed of four exons interrupted by three introns. There are two transcri ption start points and in human brain, two forms of CNP mRNA are produ ced from a single gene by alternative splicing, similar to mouse. A ho mology search of the 5'-flanking regions of exon 0 and exon 1 in the h uman CNP gene indicated the presence of oligodendroglia-specific eleme nts and myelin basic protein transcription element (MBTE) motif, in ad dition to TATA-box-like sequences. Spot blot hybridization of flow-sor ted human chromosomes with the 3'-noncoding region of the human CNP cD NA showed the localization of CNP to chromosome 17.