Intracisternal A-particle gene expression in normal mouse thymus tissue: gene products and strain-related variability

Intracisternal A-particle (IAP)-specific sequences were 5- to 10-fold enriched in polyadenylated RNA from BALB/cJ thymus as compared with RNAs from liver, spleen, and kidney. The major transcripts of 7.2 and 5.4 kilobases were the same size as those found in an IAP-rich neuroblastoma cell line. The absolute levels and proportions of these transcripts varied in thymuses from mice of different inbred strains. With antiserum prepared against p73, the main IAP structural protein, several size classes of IAP-related proteins were immunoprecipitated from extracts of thymus cells incubated with [35S]methionine; these included p73 itself and a group of polypeptides in the size range of 114 to 120 kilodaltons (p114-p120). The inbred strains showed marked characteristic differences in the electrophoretic patterns of their IAP-related proteins. Earlier studies showed that the 7.2-kilobase RNA from neuroblastoma IAPs coded for p73 in a cell-free translation system. Correlations between the RNA and protein patterns in thymuses of the different inbred strains indicated that 5.4-kilobase RNA gives rise to the p114-p120 polypeptides. Metabolically labeled p120 was found to include methionine-containing tryptic peptides of p73 plus additional peptides consistent with its larger size. In vivo labeling kinetics showed that the p114-p120 polypeptides were not major precursors of p73 in intact neuroblastoma cells. This study shows that IAP gene expression in mouse thymus is genetically determined and that a novel class of IAP-related polypeptides can be expressed independently of the major particle structural protein.