PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

J F Ding

Publications and source records attributed to J F Ding.

24 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Cloning and characterization of five overlapping cDNAs specific for the human pro alpha 1(I) collagen chain.

We report the cloning of five overlapping cDNAs bearing sequences specific for the human pro alpha 1(I) collagen chain. Poly-A RNA enriched for collagen sequences was purified from normal human fibroblasts and used as template to synthesize double stranded cDNA. The cDNA was inserted into the Eco RI site of pBR 322 by blunt-ending and dG:dC tailing. The clones were screened by colony hybridization using the original RNA population and the resulting five positive clones subjected to restriction endonuclease mapping analysis and DNA sequencing. These overlapping clones cover from residue 247 in the alpha chain to part of the 3' end untranslated region of the pro alpha 1(I) mRNA for a total of 3400 nucleotides.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

Human pro alpha 1(I) collagen gene structure reveals evolutionary conservation of a pattern of introns and exons.

The collagens represent an interesting example of a structurally related but genetically distinct family of proteins. Type I, the most abundant of the vertebrate collagens, comprises two pro alpha 1(I) chains and one pro alpha 2(I) chain, each containing terminal propeptides and a central domain of 338 (Gly, X, Y) repeats. The structure of the chicken pro alpha 2(I) gene shows an intriguing relationship between exon organization and the arrangement of (Gly, X, Y) repeats (see ref. 2 for review). This has led to the suggestion that the collagens evolved from a common ancestral unit of 54 base pairs (bp). Here we present the structure of the entire human pro alpha 1(I) gene and compare this with the chicken pro alpha 2(I). The exon arrangement of the two genes is remarkably similar, although the human pro alpha 1(I) is more compact because of the shorter length of its introns. The data strongly support the notion that the type I genes have evolved from an ancestral multi-exon unit, and that once the gene was translated, a strong evolutionary pressure caused it to maintain this elaborate structure.

Amino Acid Sequence↗