Cloning and characterization of a glutamate transporter cDNA from human brain and pancreas.

L-Glutamate is the major excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain. Sufficient removal from the synaptic cleft after neurotransmission by the L-glutamate transport system is essential to prevent excitotoxicity and neurotoxicity. We isolated mRNA from human brain and pancreatic islet cells and screened for sequences of high homology to a previously characterized rat brain glutamate transporter. An isolated sequence (GLTR) shows a 87.5% and a 92.5% sequence similarity at the nucleotide and amino acid level, respectively, with a rat brain specific L-glutamate transporter but only a 65% homology to the recently cloned human glutamate/aspartate transporter. The human mRNA is differentially expressed in brain and to a lesser degree in pancreas and in fetal liver. The gene encoding for the newly identified cDNA is located on chromosome 5.