Cloning and nucleotide sequencing of the bovine growth hormone gene

A gene coding for bovine growth hormone was isolated from a bovine genomic library. The nucleotide sequence of the coding regions of the gene was found to be identical with that of a nearly full-length growth hormone cDNA clone. The gene sequence is approximately 1800 bp in length and contains four intervening sequences. The second intervening sequence of 227 nucleotides does not contain a repetitive element similar to that observed in the rat growth hormone gene. A comparison of the 5' and 3' flanking and untranslated regions of the bovine, human and rat growth hormone genes revealed many areas of highly conserved sequence. Especially noteworthy was the observation that all three genes had a 38 nucleotide homologous sequence within their 5' flanking regions located about 100 bp upstream from their transcription initiation sites.