Isolation of TSH and LH/CG receptor cDNAs from human thyroid: regulation by tissue specific splicing.

A TSH receptor (TSH-R) cDNA has been isolated from a human thyroid lambda GT11 library. Unexpectedly, several cDNAs encoding the human LH/CG receptor (LH/CG-R), previously thought to be expressed solely in gonadal cells, were also isolated from the thyroid library. The receptors are structurally related, consisting of a signal sequence, a large extracellular amino terminal domain, seven membrane spanning domains, and a short carboxyl-terminal portion. The TSH-R is encoded by a single 4.2 kilobase mRNA specific to the thyroid. Introns were not present in any hTSH-R cDNAs examined, however, sequencing of several LH/CG-R cDNAs and RNase protection experiments demonstrated that the majority of hLH/CG-R mRNA in the thyroid is incompletely spliced. Consequently, tissue-specific splicing may be an important step in the regulation of the glycoprotein hormone receptor family.