Pohar N, Godenschwege T A, Buchner E
Th.-Boveri-Institut für Biowissenschaften, Lehrstuhl für Genetik, Am Hubland, Würzburg, D-97074, Germany.
Genomics. 1999 Apr 15;57(2):293-6. doi: 10.1006/geno.1999.5776.
Vertebrate tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases (TIMPs) regulate extracellular matrix metalloproteinases and are thus involved in a wide variety of developmental and physiological processes. By identifying cDNAs of a transcript detected within an intron of the Drosophila synapsin gene we have cloned the Drosophila TIMP gene (Timp), which represents the first invertebrate member of the TIMP gene family. Sequence analysis revealed an open reading frame of 210 amino acids with 35% identity to human TIMPs and a conserved exon-intron structure. Analysis of sequence data from the Sanger Centre demonstrated that the human TIMP3 gene is encoded within intron V of the human synapsin-III gene, indicating that the nested organization of TIMP and synapsin genes may be a general feature conserved in evolution. We therefore speculate that the human TIMP4 gene will be located in intron V of the human synapsin-II gene on chromosome 3p25, and we present preliminary evidence that a human synapsin-IV gene is located near the TIMP2 gene on chromosome 17q23-q25.
脊椎动物金属蛋白酶组织抑制剂（TIMPs）可调节细胞外基质金属蛋白酶，因此参与多种发育和生理过程。通过鉴定在果蝇突触素基因内含子中检测到的转录本的cDNA，我们克隆了果蝇TIMPs基因（Timp），它是TIMPs基因家族的首个无脊椎动物成员。序列分析揭示了一个210个氨基酸的开放阅读框，与人类TIMPs有35%的同源性，且具有保守的外显子-内含子结构。对桑格中心序列数据的分析表明，人类TIMP3基因编码于人类突触素III基因的内含子V中，这表明TIMPs基因和突触素基因的嵌套组织可能是进化中保守的普遍特征。因此我们推测人类TIMP4基因将位于3号染色体p25区带的人类突触素II基因的内含子V中，并且我们提供了初步证据表明人类突触素IV基因位于17号染色体q23-q25区带的TIMP2基因附近。
