Characterization of a tropomyosin cDNA from the hydrozoan Podocoryne carnea

A cDNA clone from the hydrozoan Podocoryne carnea was characterized. It consists of an open reading frame of 726 nt flanked by a 84 nt 5' and a 307 nt 3' untranslated region. The corresponding gene exists apparently as a single copy. The transcript is ubiquitously expressed in the polyp and the medusa stage. Several features of the predicted peptide sequence indicate a relationship to tropomyosins. At the amino acid level it shares 26-30% identical residues with other invertebrate and vertebrate tropomyosin sequences.