Structure and expression of c-fgr protooncogene mRNA in Epstein-Barr virus converted cell lines

Abstract

The c-fgr protooncogene is a member of the c-src family of tyrosine kinases. Expression of c-fgr was studied in a series of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) negative Burkitt's lymphoma cell lines and their EBV-converted derivatives. Two transcripts, of 2.9 kb and 3.5 kb, were present at dramatically elevated levels following EBV-conversion. The structure of the c-fgr transcripts was studied by the isolation and nucleotide sequence analysis of cDNA clones. This indicated that the c-fgr protein encoded by the mature mRNA would contain 529 amino acids and have a molecular weight of approximately 58,000. The N-terminus of the predicted c-fgr protein has low amino acid homology with the N-termini of other members of this family of proteins, suggesting a cell specific function for the N-terminal domain. Analysis of the c-fgr cDNA clones also revealed the presence of alternative functional polyadenylation signals, although the use of these does not account for the size difference between the two major c-fgr transcripts.