The complete primary structure for the alpha 1-chain of mouse collagen IV. Differential evolution of collagen IV domains.

We report here the complete nucleotide and amino acid sequences for the alpha 1-chain of mouse collagen IV which is 1669 amino acids in length, including a putative 27-residue signal peptide. In comparison with the amino acid sequence for the alpha 2-chain (Saus, J., Quinones, S., MacKrell, A. J., Blumberg, B., Muthkumaran, G., Pihlajaniemi, J., and Kurkinen, M. (1989) J. Biol. Chem. 264, 6318-6324), the two chains of collagen IV are 43% identical. Most of the interruptions of the Gly-X-Y repeat are homologously placed but strikingly show no sequence similarity between the two chains. Availability of the amino acid sequences for human collagen IV allows a detailed comparison of the primary structure of collagen IV and reveals evolutionarily conserved domains of the protein. Between the two species, the alpha 1 (IV) chains are 90.6% and the alpha 2 (IV) chains are 83.5% identical in sequence. We discuss these data with respect to differential evolution between and within the collagen IV chain types.