Nature 329, 75 - 79 (03 September 1987); doi:10.1038/329075a0

An intronless gene encoding a potential member of the family of receptors coupled to guanine nucleotide regulatory proteins

Brian K. Kobilka, Thomas Frielle, Sheila Collins, Theresa Yang-Feng^*, Tong Sun Kobilka, Uta Francke^*, Robert J. Lefkowitz & Marc G. Caron

Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Departments of Medicine, Biochemistry and Physiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27710, USA
^* Department of Human Genetics, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut 06510, USA

Plasma membrane receptors for hormones, drugs, neurotransmit-ters and sensory stimuli are coupled to guanine nucleotide regulatory proteins. Recent cloning of the genes and/or cDNAs for several of these receptors including the visual pigment rhodopsin¹, the adenylate-cyclase stimulatory -adrenergic receptor^2–4 and two subtypes of muscarinic cholinergic receptors^5,6 has suggested that these are homologous proteins with several conserved structural and functional features. Whereas the rhodopsin gene consists of five exons interrupted by four introns¹, surprisingly the human and hamster -adrenergic receptor genes contain no introns in either their coding or untranslated sequences⁷. We have cloned and sequenced a DNA fragment in the human genome which cross-hybridizes with a full-length ₂-adrenergic receptor probe at reduced stringency. Like the ₂-adrenergic receptor this gene appears to be intronless, containing an uninterrupted long open reading frame which encodes a putative protein with all the expected structural features of a G-protein-coupled receptor.

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