Bovine beta-crystallin complementary DNA clones. Alternating proline/alanine sequence of beta B1 subunit originates from a repetitive DNA sequence.

A library of recombinant plasmids carrying complementary DNA sequences synthesized from bovine lens messenger RNAs was constructed. Clones coding for five different beta-crystallin subunits: beta B1, beta B3, beta Bp, beta s, beta A3 (and beta A1), were identified by means of hybridization selection, followed by one- and two-dimensional gel electrophoresis of the translational products. Under rather stringent conditions each of these clones hybridizes with its corresponding mRNA and does not show significant cross-hybridization with mRNAs coding for other beta-crystallins, except in the case of the homologous beta A3 and beta A1-crystallins. The beta A3 and beta A1 subunits seem to be encoded by one mRNA using two different AUG codons as start position for translation. We have also determined the nucleotide sequence of a beta B1-crystallin cDNA (pBL beta B1) which enabled us to deduce the complete amino acid sequence of the protein. The beta B1-crystallin, a characteristic component of the high molecular weight crystallin aggregate (beta H), is internally homologous both at DNA and protein level as has been reported for gamma- and other beta-crystallins. This is in agreement with the idea that these proteins had a common ancestral precursor gene that internally duplicated. The G + C content of the coding sequence of beta B1 is very high: 67% overall and even 84.2% for the first 170 nucleotides, due to a remarkable non-random codon usage. A proline/alanine repetition in the N-terminal domain of the protein is encoded by a repetitive "simple" DNA sequence.