Genomic organisation and alternative splicing of mouse and human thioredoxin reductase 1 genes

Simone A Osborne and Kathryn F Tonissen

School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science, Griffith University, Nathan, Queensland 4111, Australia

author email corresponding author email

BMC Genomics 2001, 2:10doi:10.1186/1471-2164-2-10


Published:	22 November 2001

Abstract

Background

Thioredoxin reductase (TR) is a redox active protein involved in many cellular processes as part of the thioredoxin system. Presently there are three recognised forms of mammalian thioredoxin reductase designated as TR1, TR3 and TGR, that represent the cytosolic, mitochondrial and novel forms respectively. In this study we elucidated the genomic organisation of the mouse (Txnrd1) and human thioredoxin reductase 1 genes (TXNRD1) through library screening, restriction mapping and database mining.

Results

The human TXNRD1 gene spans 100 kb of genomic DNA organised into 16 exons and the mouse Txnrd1 gene has a similar exon/intron arrangement. We also analysed the alternative splicing patterns displayed by the mouse and human thioredoxin reductase 1 genes and mapped the different mRNA isoforms with respect to genomic organisation. These isoforms differ at the 5' end and encode putative proteins of different molecular mass. Genomic DNA sequences upstream of mouse exon 1 were compared to the human promoter to identify conserved elements.

Conclusions

The human and mouse thioredoxin reductase 1 gene organisation is highly conserved and both genes exhibit alternative splicing at the 5' end. The mouse and human promoters share some conserved sequences.