Cloning and characterization of a novel human chemokine receptor

The present study reports the identification of a human gene, HCR, which encodes a novel human chemokine receptor. The partial sequence of the HCR gene was first found in a human neutrophil cDNA library. With the use of an expressed sequence tag (EST) probe from the neutrophil library, the full length HCR cDNA was isolated. The open reading frame of HCR cDNA predicts a protein of 345 amino acids with seven transmembrane domain topography. The HCR gene exhibits good homology to human MIP-1a receptor with 43.1% amino acid identity and 64.4% amino acid similarity and also shows considerable sequence homology to other human chemokine receptors such as the MCP-3 receptor, MCP-5 receptor, and MCP-1 receptor. Northern blot analysis suggests that HCR gene is expressed abundantly in immunal tissues such as spleen, fetal liver, lymph node, and bone marrow. Strong expression was also found in human lung and heart. A chromosome mapping study indicated that HCR gene is positioned within human chromosome band Xq13. Our result suggests that HCR gene is a novel putative chemokine receptor.