Complete sequence of a bovine alpha-lactalbumin pseudogene: the region homologous to the gene is flanked by two directly repeated LINE sequences.

A 3-kb fragment hybridizing with a bovine alpha-lactalbumin cDNA probe was isolated from a bovine genomic library and completely sequenced. An internal fragment beginning downstream from exon 2, as already reported for another pseudogene, but ending in the 3'-untranslated region of exon 4 shares 78% sequence similarity with the bovine alpha-lactalbumin gene. This region is flanked by two directly repeated LINE sequences. The 5' ends of the fragment and of the aforementioned pseudogene share a specific nucleotide stretch, which suggests that they might have had a common origin.