Structure of the constant and 3' untranslated regions of the murine Balb/c gamma 2a heavy chain messenger RNA.

The complete sequence for the constant and 3' untranslated regions of a mouse gamma 2a immunoglobulin heavy chain mRNA is reported. The sequence is 1093 nucleotides long coding for the CH1 (amino-acids 118-214), the Hinge (215-230), the CH2 (231-340) and the CH3 (341-447). The 3' untranslated region is 103 nucleotides long preceding the poly(A). The nucleotide sequence predicts as in the case for gamma 1 and gamma 2b heavy chains an additional lysine residue before the termination codon. This sequence has been compared to the corresponding sequences of gamma 1 and gamma 2b heavy chain mRNAs. These sequences are respectively 75% and 84% homologous. The CH2 domains of gamma 2a and gamma 2b are 95% homologous at the nucleotide level. The cross-over point of a gamma 2a - gamma 2b heavy chain variant is located in a segment of 73 perfectly matching nucleotides. The 3' non coding regions of gamma 2a and gamma 2b are 89% homologous.