Molecular cloning and sequence determination of rat preproenkephalin cDNA: sensitive probe for studying transcriptional changes in rat tissues.

A cDNA probe was prepared to investigate the regulation of proenkephalin biosynthesis in the rat. This was necessary because human and bovine proenkephalin cDNA were not sensitive enough for the accurate detection of preproenkephalin mRNA in tissues that contain low copy numbers of this message, such as the adrenal gland. The rat probe was prepared in the following manner. Preproenkephalin mRNA was enriched by sucrose gradient centrifugation of poly(A)-containing mRNA from rat brain and was used as a template for double-stranded cDNA synthesis. The resulting cDNA was inserted into the plasmid pBR322, and recombinant plasmids were used to transform Escherichia coli RR1 cells. A synthetic oligodeoxyribonucleotide (30 bases long) with a sequence that had previously been shown to be identical in bovine and human preproenkephalin cDNA was prepared to screen the clone bank. The plasmid with the longest cDNA insert (about 1200 bases) from the positive clones was isolated, and the sequence of the entire protein coding region was determined. Like the bovine and human gene products, rat preproenkephalin contains four [Met]enkephalin sequences and one copy each of [Leu]enkephalin, [Met]enkephalin-Arg6-Gly7-Leu8, and [Met]enkephalin-Arg6-Phe7. Rat preproenkephalin is 80% and 83% homologous to the bovine and human forms, respectively, at the nucleotide level and is 82% homologous to both species at the amino acid level. Rat preproenkephalin contains 269 amino acid residues, making it larger than the human (267 residues) and bovine (263 residues) precursors. The sensitivity for detection of rat preproenkephalin mRNA with the rat cDNA was several times greater than with the corresponding cDNAs from bovine and human sources.