Divergent protein coding regions in otherwise closely related androgen-regulated mRNAs

Rat seminal vesicles serve as a model system for studying androgen action. We have sequenced and compared full length cDNAs for two major proteins (S and F) synthesised and secreted under hormonal control. Overall, mRNAS and mRNAF share 57% nucleotide sequence homology suggesting that their genes arose by duplication of a common ancestor. However, the mRNAs display a highly unusual regional distribution of sequence homology, with the untranslated regions (UTRs) being substantially more homologous than the protein-coding regions (PCRs). Detailed analysis of nucleotide substitutions at synonymous and replacement sites shows that the PCRs have evolved very rapidly. Evolutionary conservation of the UTRs is no higher than that of UTRs generally and thus provides no evidence of a specific regulatory role for the UTRs in androgen action. The primary sequences of proteins S and F have diverged so rapidly that they are the best examples of neutrally evolving proteins for which comparative nucleotide sequence data are available. However, despite their rapid divergence, the predicted higher order structures for both proteins consist largely of non-regular conformation. This is discussed in terms of their roles as structural components of the rodent copulatory plug.