Nucleotide sequence of the cloned DNA complementary to cow kappa-casein mRNA was determined. The complete sequence is composed of 854 bases and includes 60 bases of 5'-noncoding region, 570 bases of the coding region and 209 bases of 3'-noncoding region without poly(A). The cloned sequence codes for kappa-casein, the genetic variant B2. Several restriction sites were defined that permitted the identification of genetic variants and size polymorphism of restriction fragments in the structural region of the gene. Upon the comparative analysis of kappa-casein mRNAs of cow and rat, it was shown that, apart from functionally important regions in the coding sequence, high homology is characteristic of the 5'- and 3'-noncoding regions.