Worm Breeder's Gazette 11(2): 73
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.
At the last worm meeting (CSH, 1989), we reported the nucleotide sequence of the alpha-1 tubulin gene AT3 that was cloned by direct screening of a C. elegans cDNA expression library in a lambda gt11 vector (Bob Barstead), using a tubulin specific monoclonal anti-body 3A5 (provided by M. Fuller). This gene was previously identified by Linda Gremke using a chicken tubulin probe (Don Cleveland). Our clone SQ#TbA77 was cytologically mapped on chromosome I of C. elegans (Alan Coulson and John Sulston, MRC, LMB, UK). As Dr. Tom Blumenthal walked by our poster at the meeting, he pointed out the presence of an eight nucleotide non-coding sequence TTCAGGTT, which corresponds to the acceptor sequence of C. elegans in the trans-splicing reaction of mRNA. This is a rather novel feature for the tubulin gene, as the other alpha or beta tubulin genes, from C. elegans or other metazoans have not been reported to be trans-spliced at the mRNA level. We are currently trying to sequence the mRNA to test if this mRNA is indeed spliced. Figure below shows the physical map of the alpha-1 tubulin gene, and the nucleotide sequence showing the acceptor sequence ( marked by arrowed box), in the non-coding sequence of the tubulin gene. [See Figure 1]