Figure 2.

The EST 603032745F1/exon 8β is part of a V0- and/or V1-based mRNA. (a) 2 RT-PCRs were performed to define the spatial dimensions of exon 8β; a RT-PCR with primers located within exon 8 and exon 8β amplified a 372bp DNA-fragment (lane 2), and a RT-PCR with primers located within exon 8β and exon 11 amplified a 360bp DNA-fragment (lane 3). A control PCR with primers located within exons 4 and 6 [size = 435bp]—which should detect all currently known versican splice variants¹²—was performed to verify the quality of the RNA/cDNA preparation (lane 1). (b) Genomic context of exon 8β. Coding sequences (exons) are shown in bold letters. Non-coding, intervening sequences (introns) are shown in plain letters. Exon 8β is highlighted in blue letters. The primer sequences that were used for the amplification of cDNA-fragments including exon 8 are underlined; the top two primers were used to define the 5′-end of exon 8β, the bottom two primers were used to define its 3′-end. Of note, the two primers located within exon 8β are complementary to each other and of reverse orientation. (c) C-terminal amino acid sequence of the corresponding versican splice variant V5 (and a hypothetical variant V6). Two stop-codons (red asterisks) within the reading frame of exon 8β would terminate protein translation of the corresponding mRNA transcript downstream of exon 8, versicans GAGβ domain.