[Genetic engineering of peptide hormones. II. Possible polymorphism of bovine preprolactin. Molecular cloning data]

The primary structure of an insert from a clone isolated from the bovine pituitary cDNA library by hybridization with prolactin-specific probe has been determined. It was found that the rearrangement of cDNA took place in the process of cloning. The rearrangement includes the inversion of 5'-terminal and the deletion of the central part of cDNA. However from the structure of the insert we were able to deduce the sequences of 5'- and 3'-terminal regions of bovine preprolactin mRNA (257 and 551 bases long). The comparison of these sequences with those published earlier revealed several differences in the primary structure. The most essential of them is the additional triplet coding for alanine in position of -22 of the signal peptide. The heterogeneity of bovine preprolactin mRNA in the region coding for the signal peptide is considered to be a consequence of alternative splicing as it was shown for rat preprolactin mRNA.