Isolation and analysis of murine serum amyloid P component cDNA clones

In contrast to other animals, the biosynthesis of serum amyloid P component in mice is regulated as an acute-phase protein. As a first step in studying the regulation and biosynthesis of serum amyloid P component in the mouse, cDNA clones have been isolated from a liver cDNA library and sequenced. The largest of these clones was 960 bp in length, and contained an open reading frame encoding a protein of 224 amino acids. Comparison of the mouse cDNA sequence to that published for humans (Mantzouranis, E. C., S. B. Dowton, A. S. Whitehead, M. D. Edge, G. A. P. Bruns, and H. R. Colten, 1985. J. Biol. Chem. 260:7752.) revealed 74% identity for nucleotides in the translated region. Northern-blot analysis demonstrated that murine serum amyloid P component synthesis in the liver is directed by a 1.2-kb mRNA that is elevated in high responder (C57BL/6J) mice after thioglycollate-induced inflammation.