Phenotypic expression in Escherichia coli and nucleotide sequence of two Chinese hamster lung cell cDNAs encoding different dihydrofolate reductases.

Nucleotide sequence analysis of two cDNA clones, one shown to direct the synthesis in Escherichia coli of the pI 6.7 form of the 20,000-molecular-weight class of Chinese hamster lung cell dihydrofolate reductase, and the other shown to direct the synthesis of the pI 6.5 form of the 21,000-molecular-weight class of the enzyme, has revealed the following: (i) the differences in physical and enzymatic properties displayed by these two proteins are due to two variations in their respective amino acid sequences with the conversion of Leu to Phe at position 22 probably responsible for the differential sensitivity of these two enzymes to methotrexate and methasquin; (ii) the multiple mRNAs responsible for the synthesis of each of these proteins differ in size due, at least in part, to a length heterogeneity at their 3' ends; (iii) these two proteins are encoded by different genes; and (iv) the sequence AAATATA appears to be a major polyadenylation signal in one Chinese hamster lung cell dihydrofolate reductase gene and a minor signal in another.