Isolation and analysis of the human 46‐kDa mannose 6‐phosphate receptor gene

From a genomic library in EMBL 3, two overlapping clones for the human 46‐kDa mannose 6‐phosphate receptor (MPR46) were isolated, which span the entire coding sequence. The human MPR46 gene is distributed over 12 kb and is divided into seven exons (110–1573 bp). All the intron/exon borders agree with the consensus sequences of splice junctions. Exon 1 codes for a 5′ untranslated sequence. The ATG initiation codon begins with the second nucleotide in exon 2. A signal sequence of 26 amino acid residues is followed by the extracytoplasmic (luminal) domain, which extends to exon 5. The transmembrane domain of the receptor spans exons 5 and 6 and the cytoplasmic domain is encoded by exons 6 and 7. The latter domain also codes for an extended 3′ untranslated sequence. The transcription‐initiation site was defined by primer extension. The sequence upstream of the cap site has strong promoter activity and contains structural elements characteristic of promoters found in housekeeping genes. No correlation between the genomic organization and known protein domains of the MPR46 was apparent. Moreover, the sequence of about 150 amino acids within the luminal domain of MPR46, which is homologous to the 15 repeats that constitute the luminal domain of the 300‐kDa mannose 6‐phosphate receptor (MPR300), does not correlate with intron/exon borders. MPR46 and MPR300 have therefore diverged from a common ancestral gene before introduction of the present intron sequences.