Developmental upregulation of an alternative form of pcp2 with reduced GDI activity

The pcp2/L7 gene is characterized by its very cell type-specific expression restricted to cerebellar Purkinje cells and retinal bipolar neurons. Although remarkable progress as to the biochemical properties of the encoded protein has been made, knowledge on its physiological functions remains sparse. While characterizing a pcp2-driven transgenic strain, we observed the presence of a longer, so far unknown, pcp2 transcript. Different from another recently discovered splice variant, ret-pcp2, expression of this novel transcript is observed in bipolar as well as cerebellar Purkinje cells of mid-postnatal mice. The protein encoded by our novel variant appears to be less efficient in binding to Gα subunits compared to the original L7/pcp2 protein and it is also less inhibitory with respect to GTPγ binding. Its expression in the eye appears to be independent from eye opening in postnatal mice.