CLONING AND CHARACTERIZATION OF SUBTRACTED CDNAS FROM A HUMAN CILIARYBODY LIBRARY ENCODING TIGR, A PROTEIN INVOLVED IN JUVENILE OPEN-ANGLEGLAUCOMA WITH HOMOLOGY TO MYOSIN AND OLFACTOMEDIN

A group of cDNAs isolated from a subtractive ciliary body library of a normal human eye donor revealed 100% identity with TIGR a candidate g ene responsible for juvenile open tangle glaucoma [Science 275 (1997) 668-670]. Several structural features of the deduced human protein hav e been noted: a cleavable N-terminal signal peptide, a periodic repeti tion at the N-terminus of leucine and arginine residues at every seven th and eleven position respectively in helix conformation (leucine zip per-like motif) exhibiting homology with myosin, and with olfactomedin in the C-terminus. The mRNA for TIGR is abundantly expressed in the c iliary body, iris, heart and skeletal muscle, (C) 1997 Federation of E uropean Biochemical Societies.