Assignment of the 100-kDa subunit of cleavage and polyadenylation specificity factor (CPSF2) to human chromosome 14q31.3 by radiation hybrid mapping.

The generation of a new 3) end is part of the eukaryotic premRNA maturation process, in which a poly(A) tail is added by two coupled reactions: endonucleolytic cleavage at the poly(A) site followed by the polyadenylation of the upstream cleaved product (Wahle and Kuhn, 1997). A multicomponent complex sufficient to complete the 3) processing reactions is comprised of Cleavage and Polyadenylation Specificity Factor (CPSF), CstF (Cleavage stimulation Factor), CF Im (Cleavage Factor I), CF IIm (Cleavage Factor II), PAP (Poly(A) polymerase) and PABP2 (PolyA Binding Protein 2). Most of the proteins involved in this finely orchestrated process have been purified and extensively studied (Wahle and Rüegsegger, 1999). CPSF consists of four subunits of 160, 100, 73 and 30 kDa. The exact function of the 100-kDa CPSF subunit is still unknown, while its presence is essential for the maturation process (Jenny et al., 1994). The full length of the human CPSF 100-kDa subunit cDNA was cloned by Nagase et al. (2000) (GenBank accession number AB037788.1), while its bovine homologue was cloned by Jenny et al. (1994) (GenBank accession number X75931).