Exon-intron organization and chromosomal localization of the mouse monoglyceride lipase gene

Monoglyceride lipase (MGL) functions together with hormone-sensitive lipase to hydrolyze intracellular triglyceride stores of adipocytes and other cells to fatty acids and glycerol. In addition, MGL presumably complements lipoprotein lipase in completing the hydrolysis of monoglycerides resulting from degradation of lipoprotein triglycerides. Cosmid clones containing the mouse MGL gene were isolated from a genomic library using the coding region of the mouse MGL cDNA as probe. Characterization of the clones obtained revealed that the mouse gene contains the coding sequence for MGL on seven exons, including a large terminal exon of approximately 2.6 kb containing the stop codon and the complete 3 ' untranslated region. Two different 5 ' leader sequences, diverging 21 bp upstream of the predicted translation initiation codon, were isolated from a mouse adipocyte cDNA library. Western blot analysis of different mouse tissues revealed protein size heterogeneities. The amino acid sequence derived from human MGL cDNA clones showed 84% identity with mouse MGL. The mouse MGL gene was mapped to chromosome 6 in a region with known homology to human chromosome 3q21. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.