Cloning of cDNA encoding the complete precursor for bovine seminal ribonuclease.

Palmieri et al. (1) cloned and sequenced a cDNA fragment encoding bovine seminal ribonuclease (RNase BS 1) from amino acid residue 47 up to the C-terminal residue. The characterized clone p17G3 in addition to the partial coding sequence contained the complete 3'-untranslated region. On screening a cDNA library from bovine seminal vesicle tissue by colony hybridisation employing synthetic primers a number of RNase BS1-specific clones were identified. cDNA clone pBSV5 displays an open reading frame encoding a hydrophobic leader peptide consisting of 26 aa and the mature RNase BS1 of 124 aa. pBSV5 comprises the full 3'-untranslated region. The DNA sequence of pBSV5 from position 240-808 differs from the reported sequence (1) in positions 621 and 647 within the 3'-untranslated region. A surprisingly high degree of identity (92%) was found between the signal peptides of RNase BS 1 and bovine pancreatic ribonuclease (2).