A genomic clone isolated from an equine genomic library probed with an oligonucleotide (CAG)10 showed high sequence similarity to the human F18 gene and was tentatively named equine F18 gene. Because the human F18 gene is expressed in many tissues, we examined whether this equine clone was also expressed in equine tissues. The cDNA encoding equine F18 was obtained by the reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) from equine thymus. The nucleotide sequence of the equine F18 cDNA (1940 bp) was determined and contained both the ATG initiation codon and a poly(A) sequence. The cDNA sequence contained sequence homologous to exon 3 of human F18 gene and a new exon that is not found in the human F18 gene. The equine F18 gene contains a CAG repetitive sequence (CRS) that is translated into a polyglutamine tract. The CRS was analyzed for polymorphism by PCR: four and two different alleles were observed with unrelated east-Asian and thoroughbred horses, respectively. The equine F18 gene was mapped to Xq29.1 by fluorescence in situ hybridization. The human F18 gene is also X-linked. These data strongly supported the conclusion that the clone contains the equine homologue of the human F18 gene.