L. Ding et al., ALTERNATIVE SPLICING OF THE HUMAN DIACYLGLYCEROL-KINASE-ZETA GENE IN MUSCLE, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United Statesof America, 94(11), 1997, pp. 5519-5524
Diacylglycerol can function as a second messenger, and one mechanism f
or the attenuation of this signal is its conversion to phosphatidic ac
id, which is catalyzed by diacylglycerol kinase (DGK), We screened a c
DNA library from human skeletal muscle and isolated two DGK zeta cDNAs
that differed from the 3.5-kb clone originally identified in endothel
ial cells, One transcript, which was 3.4 kb long, was shown to be nonf
unctional; it had a 77-bp deletion that included the translation initi
ation site. The other was 4.1 kb long with a unique 5' sequence of 853
bp, We also isolated a genomic clone of DGK zeta and determined its o
rganization and location; it contains 32 exons, spans approximately 50
kb of genomic sequence, and maps to chromosome 11p11.2. The protein e
ncoded by the 4.1-kb transcript contains two cysteine-rich regions, a
catalytic domain, and ankyrin repeats like the endothelial form of DGK
zeta, as well as a unique N-terminal domain, The coding sequence was
shown to be derived from alternative splicing of the DGK zeta gene. In
cells transfected with the 4.1-kb clone, we detected a 130-kDa protei
n with an antibody to DGK zeta and demonstrated that it was localized
predominantly in the nucleus. We conclude that alternative splicing ge
nerates tissue-specific variants of DGK zeta that share some propertie
s but may have unique ones as well.