MOLECULAR-CLONING AND EXPRESSION OF RAT CONTRACEPTION ASSOCIATED PROTEIN-1 (CAP1), A PROTEIN PUTATIVELY INVOLVED IN FERTILIZATION

Epididymal fluid from rats rendered infertile by oral administration o f ornidazole contains a protein CAP1 (contraception-associated protein 1) that is absent from epididymal fluid, but present on epididymal sp erm, from fertile vehicle-treated rats. The gene for CAP1 has been iso lated from a rat testis cDNA library and its expression investigated i n different tissues. The deduced protein sequence of CAP1 contains 189 amino-acid residues and database searches revealed a high degree of h omology (83-95%) with human and mouse DJ-1 at the nucleotide and amino acid levels. Northern blot hybridisation from different rat tissues i ndicated that CAP1 is encoded by a 1.6-kilobase RNA transcript and see ms to be ubiquitiously expressed in the rat with a high level of expre ssion in the testis. (C)1998 Academic Press.