A cDNA clone, which has an open reading frame of 1398 nucleotides enco
ding a 466-amino-acid peptide, has been isolated from rabbit liver cDN
A library. Compared with the peptide sequence, it shows high homology
to ala adrenoceptors of human, bovine and rat. We expressed this clone
in COS-7 and investigated the pharmacological properties, revealing s
imilarity to those of human ala adrenoceptors. Competitive RT/PCR has
detected the mRNA in variety of rabbit tissues, especially abundantly
in liver, vas deferens, brain, and aorta, but not in heart.