An additional exon of stress-inducible heat shock protein 70 gene (HSP70-1)

The HSP70-1 gene, reportedly a single exon, encodes a major stress-inducibl e 72-kDa heat shock protein (HSP70). We recently demonstrated that patients with major depression had a 162-base pair (bp)-deletion in the 5'-flanking sequence of HSP70-1 mRNA in their peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Pres ent study has been conducted to clarify how this short mRNA is generated, a nd demonstrated that a novel 385 bp sequence is located 1.1 kb upstream fro m the HSP70-1 gene of normal subjects, Except for the 162 bp deletion, it i s compatible with part of the 5'-flanking sequence of the HSP70-1 gene, and contains another exon of 358 bp (exon 1) that may be connected to the 3'-t erminus (exon 3) of the conventional HSP70-1 gene. Alternative transcriptio n of exons 1 and 3 may cause the short mRNA It is concluded that HSP70-1 ge ne is constituted of three exons and may cause alternative splicing. (C) 19 99 Academic Press.