Isolation and characterization of a novel growth hormone cDNA from chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta)

A cDNA clone which codes for a novel growth hormone has been isolated from the library of chum salmon pituitaries. The clone encodes a polypeptide of 210 amino-acid residues including 22 amino-acid residues of signal peptide, which is identical in length with known chum salmon growth hormone. In the coding region, there are 30 base substitutions, some of which result in 12 amino-acid substitutions. There are 8 base changes in the 5' untranslated region, and large insertions/deletions are in the 3' non-coding region. These results clearly indicate that there are at least two species of mRNAs for growth hormone in chum salmon pituitary.