Molecular cloning of the rat vascular smooth muscle thrombin receptor. Evidence for in vitro regulation by basic fibroblast growth factor.

To study thrombin's receptor-mediated effects on vascular cells, we cloned and characterized a cDNA encoding a rat smooth muscle cell thrombin receptor. A rat aortic smooth muscle (RASM) cell cDNA library was screened with a 500-base pair (bp) sequence from the human thrombin receptor, obtained by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of cDNA synthesized from human erythropoietic leukemia (HEL) cell mRNA with PCR primers based on the published human thrombin receptor sequence. Clone pRTHR17 contains a 3418-bp insert that includes 50 bp of the 5'-untranslated region and the entire coding and 3'-untranslated regions of the RASM cell thrombin receptor. The sequence of pRTHR17 is 85% similar, at the nucleotide level, and 78% similar, at the deduced amino acid level, to the human thrombin receptor. Although the putative thrombin cleavage and binding sites are present, there are significant differences between the rat and human receptors in their amino-terminal sequences. Detectable signals (consisting of a single band of 3.45 kb) are present by Northern analysis of mRNA from RASM cells, and rat lung, kidney, and testes, but not in aorta or other tissues probed. The results of Southern analysis of rat genomic DNA are consistent with the existence of a single copy of the gene encoding this receptor. The steady state thrombin receptor mRNA level is low in cultured growth-arrested RASM cells and not detectable in rat aorta. To determine whether regulation of the RASM cell thrombin receptor occurs under growth-stimulating conditions, growth-arrested RASM cells were treated with basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF, recently proposed to be a major mitogen controlling vascular smooth muscle cell growth following injury (Lindner, V., and Reidy, M. A. (1991) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 88, 3739-3743)). There was a significant increase in thrombin receptor mRNA following the addition of bFGF. These data demonstrate that: 1) mRNA for a thrombin receptor similar to that reported from human megakaryocyte and hamster fibroblast cell lines is present in proliferating primary culture rat smooth muscle cells, 2) the most significant sequence differences are present in the amino-terminal tail of the thrombin receptor, and 3) the mRNA level for this receptor is regulated under growth-stimulating conditions in vitro.