Cross-species comparison of the sequence of the leukaemia inhibitory factor gene and its protein

Leukaemia inhibitory factor (LIF) is a pleiotropic growth factor active in diverse cell systems in both the adult and the embryo. The LIF gene from a number of mammalian species is highly conserved. The ovine and porcine LIF genes were cloned, sequenced and compared to the previously published murine and human LIF gene sequences. While the coding regions of the LIF gene are highly conserved, the non-coding regions are largely non-conserved. In a region of approximately 340 bp, the 5' end of the translational initiation codon is highly conserved (84%). This region includes four conserved TATA boxes, two transcriptional start-sites identified in the murine gene and the minimal region required to function as the LIF promoter. A sequence in the murine gene adjacent to this highly conserved region which appears to contain a negative control element is, however, poorly conserved between the four species compared, except for a sequence of 16 conserved nucleotides. Within the largely non-conserved first intron, there is a block of approximately 150 nucleotides which is highly conserved between all four species (approximately 72%). However, a sequence in intron 1 of the murine LIF gene which corresponds to an alternative exon of a putative variant LIF transcript is very poorly conserved between species, with only relics of this exon evident in the other three species. A comparison of the five LIF protein sequences available (murine, rat, human, ovine and porcine) revealed that the protein displays a high degree of similarity, ranging from 74% between mouse and sheep to 92% between rat and mouse. Several large blocks of absolutely conserved amino acid sequence were identified. The ovine LIF gene was modified to allow production of recombinant ovine LIF in yeast cells, which was shown to be biologically active on murine cells.