Relationship between mitogen-regulated protein (MRP) and proliferin (PLF), a member of the prolactin/growth hormone family.

Mitogen-regulated protein (MRP) is a glycoprotein secreted by Swiss murine 3T3 cells whose levels are increased 63-fold or more over the controls by growth factors. The sequence of a 226-bp MRP cDNA clone showed that a region close to the C terminus of MRP is identical to a sequence found in the cDNA-encoding proliferin (PLF). PLF, cloned from Balb/c 3T3 cells, is a member of the prolactin/growth-hormone family. Here we show that MRP and PLF are also antigenically identical. Antiserum raised against purified MRP specifically immunoprecipitated PLF secreted by CV-1 cells that had been transfected with PLF cDNA in an SV40 vector. Also, fibroblast growth factor (FGF) specifically increased the amount of PLF poly(A)+ RNA in Swiss 3T3 cells. We have previously shown that FGF increases the amount of MRP and MRP mRNA synthesized by the same cells. The anti-MRP antiserum recognized both unglycosylated and glycosylated forms of MRP and PLF. The unglycosylated and glycosylated forms of PLF had the same Mr values as those of the unglycosylated (21,500) and glycosylated (34,000) forms of MRP. However, the anti-MRP antiserum did not recognize mouse prolactin and anti-mouse prolactin antibody did not recognize MRP. Evidently, MRP/PLF is an immunologically distinct member of the prolactin/growth-hormone family of secreted, intercellular regulators.