Complementary DNA sequence of a human cytoplasmic actin. Interspecies divergence of 3' non-coding regions.

We have isolated and sequenced a cloned complementary DNA insert complementary to the messenger RNA of a cytoplasmic actin expressed in human epidermal cells. This provides the first cytoplasmic actin complementary DNA sequence for a vertebrate organism. The actin amino acid sequence predicted from this complementary DNA is identical to that of a bovine cytoplasmic actin and shows 98 and 85% homology with a Dictyostelium and a yeast actin, respectively. The complementary DNA sequence indicates that the 3' end of the mRNA contains an unusually long (greater than 400 nucleotides) 3' non-translated region. A comparison of this 3' non-coding region with those of recently determined actin complementary DNA sequences from other species reveals little or no homology among these sequences. Thus, these results indicate that although the actin amino acid sequences are extremely conserved, the non-coding regions of the mRNAs diverge rapidly.