Structural organization of the bovine adrenodoxin gene

The gene structure of bovine adrenodoxin (Ad), a component of the steroid hydroxylating system in adrenal cortex mitochondria, was determined. This gene seems to be a single copy, but contains a pseudo exon in addition to the genuine gene region. The gene region for the active Ad is divided into 4 exons by 3 introns, and spans at least 27 kb. All the splice donor and acceptor sites follow the GT/AG rule. The transcription initiation site was determined by primer extension analysis, and putative TATA and GC boxes are present in the 5'-flanking region. A 12 base sequence, CCAGGGCCAGGG, is present 95 bases upstream from the transcription initiation site. A similar sequence was also found in the 5'-flanking regions of all genes for the steroid hydroxylating cytochromes P-450: P-450(SCC), P-450(11 β), P-450(17α), and P-450(C21), in the adrenal cortex. The consensus sequence for these five sequences is ^C_GCAGGGCC^A_TGG^G_A. The pseudo exon, exon 1', was present about 0.5 kb upstream from exon 1. It encodes the prepeptide region of the minor type Ad mRNA, but has a stop codon (TAA) in the frame. A TATA-box-like sequence and a CAAT-box-like sequence are also present in the 5'-flanking region of exon 1'. The GC content of exon 1 was over 80%, whereas for each of the other four exons, including exon 1', it was about 40%. Our observations suggest that exon 1, which encodes the prepeptide region of the major type Ad mRNA, has intruded into the region between exon 1' and exon 2.