Heat-shock proteins, Hsp84 and Hsp86, of mice and men: two related genes encode formerly identified tumour-specific transplantation antigens.

Mouse cDNA clones have been isolated with the help of Drosophila melanogaster 82-kDa heat-shock protein (Hsp82)-coding sequences as hybridization probe. Sequencing of the overlapping mouse clones reveals a long open reading frame (ORF) that encodes a polypeptide of 83.3 kDa which shows about 80% similarity to the respective Drosophila Hsp82 amino acid sequence. The N-terminal half of this cDNA cross-hybridizes to a different class of mouse cDNA clones indicating a related gene. Northern blot hybridization experiments reveal a 2.6-kb poly(A)+RNA when probed with the hsp84 clone and a 2.85-kb signal with the hsp84-related cDNA. The amino acid sequences deduced from the contiguous ORF of the hsp84 and the hsp84-related cDNA coincide with the N-terminal sequence of formerly identified 84-kDa and 86-kDa tumour-specific transplantation antigens (Ullrich et al., 1986). In addition, the amino acid composition of the putative 84-kDa mouse Hsp described here is very similar to that of the 84-kDa tumour antigen described by Ullrich et al. (1986). Both observations corroborate the assumption that these Hsps are identical to the described 84-kDa and 86-kDa tumour-specific transplantation antigens. Using these mouse hsp gene clones as hybridization probes we also isolated the corresponding pair of human cDNA clones. Comparison of the respective sequences reveals a strong evolutionary constraint on these two genes in mouse and man.