CHARACTERIZATION OF THE HUMAN NEUROCAN GENE, CSPG3

Neurocan is a chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan thought to be involved in the modulation of cell adhesion and migration. Its sequence has bee n determined previously in rat and mouse (Rauch et al., 1992. Cloning and primary structure of neurocan, a developmentally regulated, aggreg ating, chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan of the brain. J. Biol. Chem. 2 67, 19536-19547; Rauch et al., 1995. Structure and chromosomal locatio n of the mouse neurocan gene. Genomics 28, 405-410). We describe here the complete coding sequence of the human neurocan mRNA, known as CSPG 3, as well as mapping data, expression analysis, and genomic structure . A cDNA known as CP-1 was initially sequenced as part of a gene disco very project focused on characterizing chromosome 19-specifrc cDNAs. S equence homology searches indicated close homology to the mouse and ra t proteoglycan, neurocan (GenBank accession Nos X84727 and M97161). No rthern analysis identified a brain-specific transcript of approx. 7.5 kb. A longer cDNA clone, GT-5, was obtained, fine-mapped to the physic al map of chromosome 19 by hybridization to a chromosome-specific cosm id library, and sequenced. Full coding sequence of the mRNA indicates a 3963 bp open reading frame corresponding to a 1321 amino acid protei n, similar to the protein length found in mouse and rat. The amino aci d sequence of human neurocan shows 63% identity with both the mouse an d rat sequences. Finally, genomic sequencing of a cosmid containing th e complete neurocan gene was performed to determine the genomic struct ure of the gene, which spans approx. 41 kb, and is transcribed in the telomere to centromere orientation. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Sci ence B.V. Al rights reserved.