The genomic structure encoding human initiation factor eIF-5A.

Abstract A genomic clone encoding the human eukaryotic initiation factor 5A (eIF-5A) was isolated and its entire nucleotide sequence was determined. The whole eIF-5A coding region is not interrupted by introns. The functional eIF-5A gene is highly homologous to the corresponding complementary DNA. One single 1.4-kb transcript thereof is expressed in human cell lines. Furthermore, we also isolated and sequenced two additonal eIF-5A -related sequences which are, by expression and sequence analyses, identified as pseudogenes of the functional eIF-5A . The sequence homology between these pseudogenes and the functional eIF-5A is 71 and 87%.