Figure 1

A – Schematic representation of the human Parvulin gene. The mRNA is spliced together from four exons between 43 and 723 bp in length. The size of all introns and exons is given in base pairs (bp). The longer Parvulin mRNA contains a 92 bp extension at the 5' side depicted in white. Primers used for RT-PCR are indicated by arrows. Primers 246 and 247 are complementary to the sequences around the two start ATG codons, 248 binds at the sequence around the TAA stop codon. B – RT-PCR products from different cDNA samples. RT-PCR products with mRNA from liver, kidney and Caco-2 cells after 30 amplification cycles. Primers 246 and 248 yield a 488 bp PCR product only on those Par14 mRNAs with 5' extension. Primers 247 and 248 give rise to a 385 bp DNA fragment with all Par14 mRNAs. All longer RT-PCR products were eluted from the gel and sequenced. C – First 150 nucleotides of the elongated Parvulin mRNA. Two start ATG codons are indicated in bold capital letters. The sequence of Parvulin common to both originally described cDNAs by Uchida et al. [GenBank:AF143096] [3] and Rulten et al. [GenBank:AB009690] [9] begins at the caa codon depicted in bold. The peptide sequence used for antibody production is shaded in grey. Two SNPs are shown leading to amino acid substitutions Q16R and R18S.