Isolation of murine neuron-specific and non-neuronal enolase cDNA clones

cDNA clones corresponding to subunits of neuron-specific (gamma gamma and alpha gamma) and non-neuronal (alpha alpha) enolase isozymes were characterized from two mouse brain cDNA libraries. Our hybridization data revealed a partial homology of the coding sequences of mouse alpha, mouse gamma and rat gamma mRNAs. The noncoding sequences, however, appear to be specific for each mouse mRNA. Although coding for two polypeptides of the same molecular weight, the mRNA for the gamma subunit (2600 bases) is larger than that for the alpha subunit (1900 bases). The noncoding sequences for neuron-specific gamma mRNA (about 1300 bases) are therefore longer than those of the non-nervous tissue specific alpha mRNA (about 600 bases).