Genes and pseudogenes in a reiterated rat tRNA gene cluster

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Abstract
A 13.4 kb rat genomic DNA fragment containing two related tRNA gene clusters was isolated from a rat λ recombinant and analyzed for gene arrangement and nucleotide sequence. One cluster was found to contain a gene while the second contained a , pseudogene with multiple base substitutions. The gene was found to possess an intact coding region and a functional transcription termination signal at the 3′ end as demonstrated by in vitro transcription and processing of precursors to mature size tRNA. The first tRNA gene cluster was found to contain in addition to , three other transcribable genes coding for , and ; the second cluster contained in addition to tRNALeu pseudogene, the tRNAAsp tRNAGly and tRNAGlu genes. Examination of flanking sequences of the corresponding tRNA genes in the two clusters shows no homology at the 51 ends and partial conservation of sequences at the 3′-end region. Genomic rat DNA blot hybridizationsshow that the tRNALeu gene is distributed together with the tRNAAsp, tRNAGly and tRNAGlu on a 10 fold repeat of 3.2 kb EcoRI fragment.