CLONING AND ANALYSIS OF THE CDNA-ENCODING THE ROD G-PROTEIN TRANSDUCIN ALPHA,BETA-1 AND GAMMA-1 SUBUNITS FROM THE CANINE RETINA

The canine (Canis familiaris) retinal rod transducin (G(T)) alpha, bet a 1 and gamma 1 subunits were sequenced. Cloning of the cDNAs was acco mplished by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using degenerate and wild type retinal cDNA libraries as templates. The deduced amino acid seque nces were highly similar to rod transducins from other species: G(T al pha) differed by 5 amino acids from the corresponding human sequence, whereas beta 1 and gamma 1 were identical to human sequences. The codi ng sequence of rod transducin was evaluated as a possible cause for th e recessively inherited retinal rod-cone degeneration: there were no n ucleotide differences between the wild type and retinal degenerate str ains. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.