Identification and characterization of a gene that is coamplified with dihydrofolate reductase in a methotrexate-resistant CHO cell line.

As part of an effort to characterize the spatial and functional relationships among genetic elements within the amplified dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) domain in Chinese hamster cells, we have used a variation of the differential hybridization approach to identify cDNA clones whose genes are coamplified with DHFR in the methotrexate-resistant cell line, CHOC 400. Our initial screen was successful in isolating both DHFR and non-DHFR cDNAs. One of the non-DHFR cDNA clones, 2BE2121, hybridizes on Northern (RNA) blots to abundant 1,200- and 1,500-nucleotide (nt) transcripts which differ in the lengths of their 3' untranslated regions. The clone 2BE2121 contains a 789-nt open reading frame but does not appear to be related to any members of the protein or nucleic acid sequence databases. A second larger non-DHFR cDNA, II-19-211, was isolated that is transcribed from the same gene as 2BE2121 but contains only a small carboxyl-terminal portion of the open reading frame. II-19-211 may, therefore, represent either a splicing intermediate or an mRNA transcribed from a cryptic intragenic promoter. Hybridization to cosmids from the DHFR domain shows that 2BE2121 is encoded by a gene approximately 34 kilobases (kb) long. The 5'-most genomic fragment is less than 4 kb from an interamplicon junction. The 3' end of the 2BE2121 gene lies approximately 75 kb downstream from the DHFR gene and approximately 25 kb downstream from the proximal replication initiation site, and the transcriptional polarity is opposite to that of the leading strand of replication. Thus, both the DHFR and 2BE2121 genes are exceptions to the theory that transcription proceeds in the same direction as the leading strand of the replication fork.