ISOLATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF CLONED CDNAS ENCODING HUMAN-LIVER CHLORDECONE REDUCTASE

Chlordecone (Kepone), a toxic organochlorine pesticide, undergoes bioreduction to chlordecone alcohol in human liver. This reaction is controlled by a cytosolic enzyme, chlordecone reductase (CDR), which may be of the aldo-keto reductase family of xenobiotic metabolizing enzymes [Molowa et al. (1986) J. Biol. Chem. 261, 12624-12627], To further investigate the primary structure and expression of CDR, we screened a library of human liver cDNAs cloned in the expression vector λgt11 and isolated an 800 bp cDNA that directed synthesis of a fusion protein recognized by polyclonal anti-CDR antibodies. Using this cDNA as a probe, we screened two human liver cDNA libraries and found several 1.2-kb cDNAs which would code for a polypeptide with 308 residues (35.8 kDa). However, a similar full-length cDNA, possibly the transcript of a pseudogene, contained an in-frame nonsense codon. The deduced protein sequence of CDR showed 65% similarity to the primary structure of human liver aldehyde reductase and 66% similarity to the inferred protein sequence of rat lens aldose reductase. A search of GenBank revealed significant nucleotide similarity to a cDNA coding for bovine lung prostaglandin f synthase and to a partial cDNA coding for frog lens ρ-crystallin. Southern blot analysis of human genomic DNA displayed between 45 and 65 kilobases of DNA hybridizable to CDR cDNA and demonstrated several restriction fragment length polymorphisms among 26 individuals. Northern blot analysis of RNA from human, gerbil, rabbit, hamster, mouse, and rat livers disclosed hybridization with CDR cDNA only for the first three species. These same three species’ livers contain CDR activity and one or more proteins immunoreactive with anti-CDR antibodies. RNA from adult but not fetal human liver, and from the human hepatoma cell-line Hep G2, contained major (1.6 kb) and minor (2.8 kb) species hybridizable to a CDR cDNA. The relative amounts of these RNAs varied markedly among nine subjects. From this initial description of the nucleotide sequence for a human carbonyl reductase, we conclude that CDR and several related enzymes are part of a novel multigene family involved in the metabolism of such xenobiotics as chlordecone and possibly endogenous substrates. © 1990, American Chemical Society. All rights reserved.