Identification and expression analysis of a novel splice variant of human Sprouty1 gene

Sprouty (SPRY) was first identified in a genetic screen in Drosophila to be an antagonist of fibroblast growth factor (FGF) and epidermal growth factor (EGF) signaling, seemingly by inhibiting the Ras/MAP kinase pathway. During large scale DNA sequencing of the human fetal brain cDNA library, we cloned a novel splice variant of human Sprouty1 gene, and termed it human Sprouty1b (SPRY1b). It has the same deduced protein as Sprouty1a, which has been reported. And like other members of Sprouty family, SPRY1b deduced protein also has a C-terminal cysteine-rich region. According to the search against human genome database, SPRY1b was mapped to 4q25-28. Expression analysis of SPRY1a and SPRY1b shows that they are hardly expressed in adult human, but have different expression patterns in fetus, which confirmed that SPRY1 is an important gene during fetal development.