G Protein, Alpha Activating Activity Polypeptide Olfactory Type (GNaL)

XLG(olf) uses an alternate first exon, designated exon 1a, that is 5-prime to the originally identified start site and encodes a longer functional protein. G(olf) and XLG(olf) displayed different expression patterns in the central nervous system when heterologously expressed in Sf9 cells, and both functionally coupled to the dopamine D1 receptor. GNAL gene contains 12 coding exons and spans over 80 kb. The promoter region has no consensus CCAAT or TATA boxes, and the 5-prime UTR contains multiple transcription start sites. The 3-prime UTR contains 2 Alu elements and 3 polyadenylation sequences, the most 5-prime of which is between the 2 Alu repeats. Intron 5 contains a CA repeat that may be useful for linkage analysis since there are at least 11 alleles.