SPLICING OF AN ANTISENSE ALU SEQUENCE GENERATES A CODING SEQUENCE VARIANT FOR THE ALPHA-3 SUBUNIT OF A NEURONAL ACETYLCHOLINE-RECEPTOR

In this report we demonstrate that an α-3 acetylcholine receptor subunit transcriptional variant originates through alternative splicing of a complementary sequence of the right arm of an Alu element. This element is located within the 5.1Kb intron found between axons 5 and 6 of the α-3 acetylcholine receptor subunit gene. The transcriptional variant originates from the normal splicing process and carries an in-frame stop codon. If translated, it should encode for a peptide lacking the 4th transmembrane domain of the normal subunit. © 1993 Academic Press, Inc.