Juan T S, McNiece I K, Jenkins N A, Gilbert D J, Copeland N G, Fletcher F A
Department of Developmental Hematology, Amgen, Inc, Thousand Oaks, California 91320, USA.
Oncogene. 1996 Aug 15;13(4):749-55.
Interleukin-1 beta converting enzyme (ICE) defines a new class of mammalian cysteine protease that shares strong homology with the Caenorhabditis elegans death gene ced-3. Both ICE and CED-3, when introduced into cultured cells, induce apoptosis, indicating that this type of cysteine protease may play an important role in the process of programmed cell death. Here, we report the cloning of a mouse and rat gene encoding a novel cysteine protease. The putative proteins encoded by these cDNAs contain the conserved sequence (QACRG) necessary for covalent linkage to the substrate as well as the three amino acids responsible for substrate binding and catalysis in ICE. Amino acid sequence analysis indicates that this rodent cysteine protease is the homolog of human CPP32 beta. Mouse CPP32 beta mRNA is highly expressed in spleen, and to a lesser degree in brain, lung, liver, and kidney. The mouse CPP32 beta genomic locus spans a region of approximately 20 kb, including seven exons and six introns. Mouse interspecific backcross mapping allowed localization of CPP32 beta to the central region of mouse chromosome 8, linked to Scvr, Lpl, Jund1 and Mlr.
白细胞介素-1β转化酶（ICE）定义了一类新的哺乳动物半胱氨酸蛋白酶，它与秀丽隐杆线虫死亡基因ced-3具有高度同源性。当将ICE和CED-3导入培养细胞时，二者均可诱导细胞凋亡，这表明此类半胱氨酸蛋白酶可能在程序性细胞死亡过程中发挥重要作用。在此，我们报道了小鼠和大鼠中一个编码新型半胱氨酸蛋白酶的基因的克隆。这些cDNA编码的推定蛋白含有与底物共价连接所需的保守序列（QACRG）以及ICE中负责底物结合和催化的三个氨基酸。氨基酸序列分析表明，这种啮齿动物半胱氨酸蛋白酶是人类CPP32β的同源物。小鼠CPP32β mRNA在脾脏中高度表达，在脑、肺、肝和肾中的表达程度较低。小鼠CPP32β基因座跨越约20 kb的区域，包括7个外显子和6个内含子。小鼠种间回交图谱分析将CPP32β定位到小鼠8号染色体的中央区域，与Scvr、Lpl、Jund1和Mlr连锁。
