Worm Breeder's Gazette 12(2): 50 (January 1, 1992)

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.

The sequence of unc-52

Teresa Rogalski, Donald Moerman

Figure 1

Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C.

The products of the unc-52 gene have an essential role in embryonic development, and are required for maintaining the normal structure of the body wall muscle cells and the somatic gonad in adult worms. We have completed the genomic sequence of this gene which is approximately 14.2 Kb in length and consists of 26 exons. Analysis of cDNAs indicates that there are at least three different transcripts with three different 3' ends. No full length cDNAs have been obtained so we do not known if there is more than one 5' end. The sequence of unc-52 suggests that its products are proteoglycans and are probably components of the extracellular matrix. The protein structure of three putative unc-52 products are shown in the accompanying diagram. All three proteins are shown with the same amino terminal sequences which consist of a signal peptide and an acidic region which may contain two heparin-sulfate binding sites. These are followed by a single C2 Immunoglobulin superfamily (Ig) repeat, three LDL-Receptor like repeats, another Ig repeat, two Laminin like repeats and 14 Ig repeats. One of the cDNAs obtained ends after the Laminin like repeats. The other two cDNAs differ in the number of Ig repeats, and all three cDNAs encode different carboxy terminal amino acids. The sizes of the three proteins are approximately 270,000, 230,000 and 125,000 Daltons.

[See Figure 1]

Figure 1