Characterization of a novel, human cytotoxic lymphocyte‐specific serine protease cDNA clone (CSP‐C)

Abstract

Abstract: A human cDNA clone encoding a novel serine protease, cytotoxic serine protease‐C(CSP‐C), has been isolated from a cDNA library prepared from recombinant interleukin‐2 (IL‐2)‐activated lymphocytes of a patient with a large granular lymphoproliferative disorder. The clone has a 741‐base pair open reading frame encoding a putative 246‐amino acid protein. The protein sequence contains the catalytic charge relay system characteristic of a serine protease and the conserved N‐terminal amino acid sequence of the mature cytotoxic lymphocyte serine proteases found in both mouse and human. The amino acid sequence of CSP‐C has 71% identity with the previously reported cytotoxic serine protease..