Characterization of mouse ubiquitin-like SMT3A and SMT3B cDNAs and gene/pseudogenes

Abstract

Mouse SMT3A and SMT3B cDNAs encoding ubiquitin-like proteins of 110 and 95 amino acids, respectively, were isolated and sequenced. The sequence of the first 92 amino acids (ending with the conserved Gly-Gly) of mouse SMT3A exhibited two differences at amino acid no. 38 and 76 in comparison with that of human SMT3A. The C-terminal 18 amino acid sequence of mouse SMT3A was completely different from the C-terminal 11 amino acid sequence of human SMT3A. Mouse and human SMT3B were identical for a sequence of 95 amino acids. Mouse SMT3A genomic DNAs were amplified by polymerase-chain-reaction and sequenced. The nucleotide sequence of a PCR-amplified SMT3A genomic DNA fragment was found to be identical to that of SMT3A cDNA, indicating the absence of intron(s) in its protein coding region. Another genomic DNA fragment of 1531 nucleotides, containing 7% differences from that of cDNA, is unable to encode a functional protein, and thus, it is a SMT3A processed pseudogene. Three mouse SMT3B processed pseudogenes were cloned and sequenced. The genuine mouse SMT3B gene has not yet been isolated. Mouse SMT3A transcript of 1.8 kb was predominantly expressed in most tissues, while SMT3B transcript of 1.0 kb was abundantly present in all tissues analyzed.