Worm Breeder's Gazette 11(2): 38

These abstracts should not be cited in bibliographies. Material contained herein should be treated as personal communication and should be cited as such only with the consent of the author.

A Candidate Sequence for the Gene S-Adenosyl-L-Homocysteine Hydrolase is Located Near the dpy-14 Gene

T. Starr, D.L. Baillie and A.M. Rose

Using the technique of cross-species hybridization to C.  briggsae 
we have initiated a search for coding elements contained within seven 
cosmids located near dpy-14.  Fragments detecting conserved regions 
between C.  elegans and C.  briggsae were used to probe Northern blots 
and screen cDNA libraries.  A total of ten conserved fragments 
detected seven cDNAs.  To better align the genetic and physical maps 
of this region the conserved fragments, cDNA clones, the breakpoint of 
the deficiency hDf8, and the probes identifying sP1 and hP9 have been 
positioned on a restriction map of the region.
Two cDNA clones, sP1-1 and sP1-3, also detected conserved bands 
between C.  elegans and mammals.  Partial cDNA clones of both were 
sequenced and the sequence data used to screen the EMBL sequence data 
base.  The sP1-1 sequence did not detect any significant matches 
however, the sP1-3 sequence detected sequence similarities with the 
gene for S-adenosyl-L-homocysteine hydrolase (AHH) from rat(1) and D.  
discoideum(2).  A comparison of the deduced amino acid sequence 
indicated that 60% of the amino acids between sP1-3 and AHH are 
identical; and, if conservative changes are considered the homology 
between sP1-3 and AHH is greater than 80%.  Thus the high degree of 
similarity between sP1-3 and AHH suggests that the sP1-3 locus encodes 
the gene S-adenosyl-L-homocysteine hydrolase.