A comparison between mammalian and avian fast skeletal muscle alkali myosin light chain genes: regulatory implications.

A single locus in the mouse, rat and chicken encodes both alkali myosin light chains, MLC1F and MLC3F. This gene has two distinct promoters and gives rise to two different primary transcripts, which are processed by alternative and different modes of splicing to form MLC1F and MLC3F mRNAs. The MLC1F/MLC3F gene is very similar between mouse, rat and chicken, in terms of its overall structure, the length and location of the introns, and the splice site consensus sequences. Nucleotide sequences of coding regions are very conserved but 3' and 5' non coding regions of the mRNAs have diverged. In the MLC1F promoter regions, several blocks of nucleotides are highly conserved (more than 70% homology), especially a sequence of about 70 nucleotides, located between positions -80 and -150 relative to the Cap site. Conserved blocks of homology are also found in the MLC3F promoter regions, although the common sequences are shorter. The presence of such highly conserved nucleotide sequences in the 5' flanking regions suggests that these sequences are functionally important in initiation of transcription and regulation of expression of this complex gene. Primer extension experiments indicate multiple cap sites for MLC3F mRNA.