The structure of cloned DNA complementary to catfish pancreatic somatostatin-14 messenger RNA

Pancreatic poly(A) RNA isolated from the channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) was enriched for sequences corresponding to somatostatin mRNA on isokinetic sucrose gradients. Double-stranded cDNA was synthesized and inserted into the Pst I site pBR322 via the poly(dG) . poly(dC) tailing method. Escherichia coli was transformed with this DNA, and colonies containing somatostatin cDNA sequences were identified by hybridization using a primer-extended somatostatin cDNA. The somatostatin cDNA was obtained by extending a 5'-labeled undecanucleotide primer complementary to somatostatin mRNA with reverse transcriptase using catfish poly(A) RNA as a template. The synthetic primer d(T-T-C-C-A-G-A-A-G-A-A) was deduced from the amino acid sequence Phe-Phe-Trp-Lys present in somatostatin-14. Twenty positive colonies were obtained upon screening 2000 transformants. The restriction maps of the plasmid DNA obtained from the positive colonies were examined. Nineteen of these plasmids contained sequences corresponding to somatostatin-14, while one contained a sequence corresponding to somatostatin-22. The nucleotide sequence of pancreatic somatostatin-14 is reported here. The cDNA contains 350 nucleotides in the 3' noncoding region, 345 nucleotides in the coding region, and 104 nucleotides in the 5'-untranslated region. The mRNA codes for a precursor to somatostatin which is 114 amino acids in length. The preprosomatostatin has a sequence of hydrophobic amino acids at the NH2 terminus, followed by a connecting peptide of approximately 75 amino acids. The sequence Arg-Lys precedes somatostatin-14. Analysis of genomic DNA from the channel catfish reveals that somatostatin-14 and somatostatin-22 are present on different restriction fragments.