Characterization of the mouse thrombospondin gene and evaluation of the role of the first intron in human gene expression.

We have isolated the mouse thrombospondin (TS) gene and determined the DNA sequence of the first nine exons and eight introns. Comparison with the human cDNA sequence reveals a high degree of conservation in coding sequences. Exon 3 of the mouse gene, which encodes the heparin-binding domain of TS, has a higher degree of nucleotide substitution than the other exons, but the distribution of charged and hydrophobic amino acids found in the human protein is generally conserved. DNA and protein sequences in exons 6-9, which encode a procollagen homology and motifs very similar to those found in at least two malarial parasite proteins, are highly conserved. The first two of the three malarial homologies in TS, which are also found in properdin and in components C6-9 of the lytic complement complex, are each encoded by a separate exon (8 and 9) in the mouse gene. Since the sequence data did not reveal substantial similarity in sequence between intron I in the human and mouse genes, we have reexamined the role of the first intron in the transcriptional regulation of the human TS gene. In accord with published studies (Laherty, C.D., Gierman, T.M., and Dixit, V.M. (1989) J. Biol. Chem. 264, 11222-11227), we find that deletion of some intronic segments from TS-chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) constructs reduces CAT activity in NIH 3T3 cells. However, deletion of the same sequences from TS-bovine growth hormone constructs does not affect the expression of bovine growth hormone in these cells. We conclude that differences in the activity of TS-CAT constructs reflect post-transcriptional differences that are peculiar to the resulting chimeric transcripts and that there is currently no evidence for a transcriptional enhancer in the first intron of the human TS gene.