Characterization of rat kallikrein-like multigene family and its expression in the submandibular gland.

A cDNA clone encoding rat tissue kallikrein was isolated from a submandibular cDNA library. The kallikrein cDNA clone was used as a probe to analyze the complexity of the kallikrein-like gene family and its expression. The results indicate that rat kallikrein-like genes identified with this probe belong to a very large and highly homologous multigene family. A number of these genes, perhaps as many as a dozen or so, are expressed in the submandibular gland.