Novel characterisation of the gene encoding conglutinin reveals that previously characterised promoter corresponds to the CL-43 promoter.

Conglutinin, a collectin found in bovine serum, is an opsonin that binds to glycoconjugates on the surface of microorganisms or on deposited iC3b, and acts in concert with phagocytes to establish a first-line of immune defense. We have isolated a genomic conglutinin phage clone and found that the 5'-flanking region shows 95.8% identity with the sequence previously published, which on the other hand shows 99.7% identity with the CL-43 promoter. We conclude that the previously published promoter corresponds to the CL-43 promoter and that the functional studies performed on it apply to transcription of CL-43. Comparison of potential cis-regulatory elements in relation to the functional studies indicates that the two genes are regulated by different mechanisms.