Primary structure of rat RT6.2, a nonglycosylated phosphatidylinositol-linked surface marker of postthymic T cells.

RT6 is an unusual cell membrane protein that is expressed exclusively by postthymic T cells. The inherent defect in its expression has been correlated to lymphopenia and genetically determined susceptibility for insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus in the rat. We report here the primary structure of the RT6.2 alloantigen as deduced from the cDNA sequence. The predicted amino acid sequence of RT6.2 begins with a conventional leader of 20 amino acids and ends in a hydrophobic C-terminal extension peptide of 29 amino acids as is common for phosphatidylinositol-anchored proteins. Native RT6.2 is predicted to comprise 226 amino acids, with a calculated Mr of 26,036. Four cysteine residues account for two intrachain disulfide bonds. The sequence lacks potential N-glycosylation sites and contains an excess of positively charged residues. Homology searches in protein sequence data banks suggest that RT6.2 is not encoded by a member of the immunoglobulin supergene family. Moreover, these analyses did not reveal any close homologies of RT6.2 to known proteins: the highest homology found was 21.2% identity in a 52-amino acid overlap to the torpedo acetylcholinesterase precursor. Southern blot analyses indicate that RT6.2 is the product of a single-copy gene and provide evidence for closely related genes in the mouse and other species. The corresponding gene products remain to be identified.