Isolation and nucleotide sequence of a partial cDNA clone for bovine opsin

Bovine cDNAs were cloned by using a mixture of 18-base-long synthetic deoxyribonucleotides as a hybridization probe. The longest cDNA clone (pBO-1) contained an 811-bp insert that included the 434 bp of the coding region corresponding to the C-terminal 144 amino acid residues of opsin peptide and the 377 bp of the 3'-untranslated region. The size of opsin mRNA was determined as 23 S by Northern blot hybridization. Bovine liver DNA gave rise to a single band of 2.8 kb, 1.1 kb and 7.9 kb each with Eco RI, Hind III and Bam HI, respectively, by Southern blot hybridization with pBO-1 as probe. Therefore, bovine opsin gene may occur once per haploid genome.