Complete nucleotide and deduced amino acid sequences of human and murine preprocathepsin L. An abundant transcript induced by transformation of fibroblasts.

L J Joseph; L C Chang; D Stamenkovich; V P Sukhatme

doi:10.1172/JCI113497

Published May 1, 1988 - More info

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Abstract

Transfection of an activated rat oncogene into NIH3T3 fibroblasts leads to transformation and induction of a metastatic phenotype. To identify genes whose activation might mediate these processes, we used a differential screening strategy. A 1.5-kb transcript is induced fiftyfold, constitutes 1% of ras transformed cell messenger RNA (mRNA) and is the most abundantly induced message in these cells. Our sequence data shows that it encodes murine cathepsin L, a potent collagenolytic and elastinolytic lysosomal enzyme. The murine clone was used to isolate human cathepsin L complementary DNA (cDNA) clones. The complete nucleotide and deduced amino acid sequences of human and murine preprocathepsin L are presented and compared to other papain family cysteine proteinases. Northern analysis shows that both human and murine cathepsin L probes hybridize to a 1.5-kb transcript in several tissues, but also to a 4-kb transcript in human kidney. These clones will facilitate studies of the structure, expression, and function of cathepsin L, including its unexpected upregulation in transformation.

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