PRESENCE OF MULTIPLE FUNCTIONAL POLYADENYLATION SIGNALS IN THE 3'-UNTRANSLATED REGION OF HUMAN CORTICOTROPIN RECEPTOR CDNA

We present 2.59 kb of the 3'-non-coding region of the ACTH receptor cD NA that contains seven potential polyadenylation signals. Among these signals, five are functional as detected by 3'-RACE and are consistent with the transcripts of 1.8, 3.4 and 4 kb visualized on Northern blot s. We propose that the most likely molecular mechanism for the multipl e ACTH-R mRNA transcripts is the alternative use of polyadenylation si gnals.