Cloning, Characterization, and Chromosomal Localization of Human Supervillin (SVIL)

Supervillin is a 205-kDa F-actin binding protein originally isolated from bovine neutrophils. This protein is tightly associated with both actin filaments and plasma membranes, suggesting that it forms a high-affinity link between the actin cytoskeleton and the membrane. Human supervillin cDNAs cloned from normal human kidney and from the cervical carcinoma HeLa S3 predict a bipartite structure with three potential nuclear localization signals in the NH₂-terminus and three potential actin-binding sequences in the COOH-terminus. In fact, throughout its length, the COOH-terminal half of supervillin is similar to segments 2–6 plus the COOH-terminal “headpiece” of villin, an actin-binding protein in intestinal microvilli. A comparison of the bovine and human sequences indicates that supervillin is highly conserved at the amino acid level, with 79.2% identity of the NH₂-terminus and conservation of three of the four nuclear localization signals found in bovine supervillin. The COOH-terminus is even more highly conserved, with 95.1% amino acid identity overall and 100% conservation of the villin-like headpiece. Supervillin mRNAs are expressed in all human tissues tested, but are most abundant in muscle, bone marrow, thyroid gland, and salivary gland; comparatively little message is found in brain. Human supervillin mRNA is ∼7.5 kb; this message is especially abundant in HeLa S3 cervical carcinoma, SW480 adenocarcinoma, and A549 lung carcinoma cell lines. The human supervillin gene (SVIL) is localized to a single chromosomal locus at 10p11.2, a region that is deleted in some prostate tumors.