The soluble sulfotransferases are involved in the elimination of xenobiotics, the activation of procarcinogens, and the regulation of hormones. They comprise a gene superfamily (SULT). The structure and chromosomal location of nine human SULT genes are known. We have characterized a further gene, SULT1B1. Its structure is similar to that of other SULT1 genes. However, the total length of its eight exons and the introns (33.6 kb) is larger than that of other human SULT1 genes (4 to 21 kb). The SULT1B1 gene sequence is part of a sequence entry in the unfinished High-Throughput Genomic Sequences (HTGS) division of GenBank. However, the order and orientation of the SULT1B1 exons are not correct in this entry. SULT1B1 is located on chromosome 4q13.1, nearly 100 kb downstream of SULT1E1 on the same strand. The intervening sequence contains a SULT-like structure showing substantial homology to the mouse SULT1D1 cDNA recently described. However, in humans this structure represents a pseudogene (SULT1D1P) because of mutated splice donors/acceptors and in-frame stop codons in the sequence corresponding to exon II. This SULT gene cluster is located on the minus strand of chromosome 4 with SULT1B1 being closest to the centromer.
Copyright 2001 Academic Press.