Expression analysis, genomic structure, and mapping to 7q31 of the human sperm adhesion molecule gene SPAM1

During the course of systematic sequence tag analysis of clones isolated from an adult testis cDNA library, clones 296 and 576 were found to detect 71-74% sequence identity to the guinea pig sperm surface protein PH-20. This surface protein is involved in sperm-egg adhesion in the guinea pig. Nucleotide sequence for 1919 bp of human DNA from a series of overlapping cDNA clones isolated from a testis cDNA library confirmed the sequence identity within a 1527-bp open reading frame to be 71-74% to the guinea pig gene and the similarity to be 60% for the predicted protein of 509 amino acids. Southern blot analysis of human genomic DNA and DNA from somatic cell hybrids indicates that the gene (SPAM1) is unique and does not form part of a larger family and that it maps to chromosome 7. Fluorescence in situ hybridization with yeast artificial chromosome (YAC) clones isolated from the CEPH megaYAC library has refined this localization to 7q31. PCR analysis of genomic DNA and YAC clone DNA has shown that the 1919 bp of the gene that has been cloned covers approximately 11 kb of genomic DNA and is encoded by at least 4 exons. Northern analysis of poly(A)+ mRNA from a range of 16 human tissues has demonstrated that expression of the gene as a single 2.4-kb transcript is strictly limited to the testis.