GENOMIC AND CDNA SEQUENCE-ANALYSIS OF THE CELL-MATRIX ADHESION REGULATOR GENE

The cell matrix adhesion regulator (CMAR) gene has been suggested to b e a signal transduction molecule influencing cell adhesion to collagen and, through this, possibly involved in tumor suppression, The origin ally reported CMAR cDNA was 464 bp long with a tyrosine phosphorylatio n site at the extreme 3' end, which mutagenesis studies had shown to b e central to the function of this gene. Since the discovery of a 4-bp insertion polymorphism within the originally reported coding region, f urther sequence information has been obtained, The cDNA has been exten ded 5' by approximate to 2 kb revealing a 559-bp region showing strong homology to the proposed 5' untranslated sequence of a murine protein kinase receptor family member, variant in kinase (vik), CMAR genomic sequencing has shown the presence of an intron, the intron/exon bounda ry lying within this region of homology. An RNA transcript for CMAR of approximate to 2.5 kb has also been identified, The data suggest comp lex mechanisms for control of expression of two closely associated gen es, CMAR and the vik-associated sequence.