Figure 1.

Human nNOS 5′-mRNA structure and cloning results. Nine distinct examples of exon 1 were isolated with 5′-RACE in 97 cDNA clones. (A) Exon 1 splices to a common exon 2 where translation initiates. Shaded area represents the coding region. The gene-specific antisense primers used in the 5′-RACE are depicted as arrowheads P1, P2, and P3. Diversity arising from downstream promoter activity would not be detected (32). (B) Nucleotide sequences of varied exon 1 examples and exon AS of the human nNOS. Uppercase letters, exonic sequences; lowercase letters, intronic sequences. GenBank accession nos. AF049712–AF049720.