Estaller C, Schwaeble W, Dierich M, Weiss E H
Institut für Immunologie, München, FRG.
Eur J Immunol. 1991 Mar;21(3):799-802. doi: 10.1002/eji.1830210337.
The human complement factor H is an important component in the control of the alternative pathway of complement activation. We have previously shown that a least three factor H homologous mRNA species of 4.3 kb, 1.8 kb and 1.4 kb in length are constitutively expressed in human liver. In addition, several factor H-related proteins have been detected in human sera using antibodies directed against the classical human factor H glycoprotein of 150 kDa. The structure of the additional polypeptides has not been shown so far. Circumstantial evidence suggests that the 1.8-kb mRNA might encode the 43-kDa factor H-like polypeptide. Here we report the isolation, characterization and eukaryotic expression of the first full-length cDNA representing the major 4.3-kb mRNA and the 1.8-kb mRNA of human factor H. We show that the 4.3-kb transcript encodes the 150-kDa-factor H glycoprotein and the 1.8-kb mRNA the 43-kDa factor H polypeptide. The identity of the two cDNA in a region of 1400 nucleotides suggests that the two factor H-related transcripts are derived from one gene by a process of alternative splicing.
人类补体因子H是控制补体激活替代途径的重要成分。我们先前已表明，人类肝脏中组成型表达至少三种长度分别为4.3 kb、1.8 kb和1.4 kb的因子H同源mRNA。此外，使用针对150 kDa经典人类因子H糖蛋白的抗体，已在人血清中检测到几种因子H相关蛋白。到目前为止，尚未阐明这些额外多肽的结构。间接证据表明，1.8 kb的mRNA可能编码43 kDa的因子H样多肽。在此，我们报告了代表人类因子H主要4.3 kb mRNA和1.8 kb mRNA的首个全长cDNA的分离、表征及真核表达。我们表明，4.3 kb的转录本编码150 kDa的因子H糖蛋白，而1.8 kb的mRNA编码43 kDa的因子H多肽。两个cDNA在1400个核苷酸区域的一致性表明，这两个因子H相关转录本是通过可变剪接过程从一个基因衍生而来。
