Primary structure of a human glandular kallikrein gene

To isolate a human glandular kallikrein gene, a human genomic library was screened with a probe made from a mouse kallikrein cDNA (pMK-1). Overlapping clones were obtained and nucleotide sequence determination showed that they together contained a human glandular preprokallikrein gene, hGK-1, of 5.2 kb. The gene encoded a unique preproprotein of 261 amino acids. The sequence of the mature 237-amino-acid protein had 66% homology with the sequence predicted for human kallikrein synthesized in the pancreas, kidney, and salivary gland. Moreover, it had even stronger homology (78%) with human prostate-specific antigen. The latter lacks an aspartic acid residue essential for kallikrein-specific cleavage, whereas the sequence of this new protein had all of the attributes needed to confer kallikrein-like specificity. Southern blotting indicated that the number of glandular kallikrein genes in man could be limited to three, a situation very different from mouse and rat, which each have a large multigene family. Furthermore, unlike kallikrein genes in the mouse, hGK-1 was not closely linked to other human kallikrein genes. In other respects the structure of the human kallikrein gene resembled that in mouse: coding sequences in the five exons were organized similarly, homology was higher with other members of the kallikrein gene family in the same species, and the three key amino acid residues required by serine proteases for their catalytic activity, together with the residue that confers kallikrein-specific cleavage, were conserved and located on different exons. Thus, if hGK-1 is expressed, its product represents a new, and possibly the only other enzyme with true kallikrein-like specificity in man.