Nucleotide sequences for the duck globin mRNAs.

Normal adult ducks possess two main types of hemoglobin: a major species (80%), HbI (alpha I2 beta I2), and a minor species (20%), HbII (alpha II2 beta II2). We have cloned recombinant cDNAs for the duck globin mRNAs using the ribosubstitution floppy loop technique. We present here the sequence for a duck alpha globin mRNA closely related to the chicken alpha D globin mRNA. Our new sequence data also include the 5' noncoding regions of the duck alpha A, alpha D, and beta globin mRNAs. Analysis of the untranslated regions of these mRNAs reveals several conserved sequences which may be important in the regulation of gene expression.