A novel tumour associated leucine zipper protein targeting to sites of gene transcription and splicing

6533b830fe1ef96bd12966a8

RESEARCH PRODUCT

A novel tumour associated leucine zipper protein targeting to sites of gene transcription and splicing

Gerhard Seitz Michael Pfreundschuh Thomas Eberle Carsten Zwick Ugur Sahin Michael Koslowski Margit Zuber Villena-heinsen C Pia Ballweber Carolin Bell Benedikt Buss ÖZlem Türeci

subject

Cancer Research Leucine zipper DNA Complementary Transcription Genetic Green Fluorescent Proteins Immunoblotting Biology medicine.disease_cause Models Biological Proto-Oncogene Mas Antigens Neoplasm Transcription (biology)Protein targeting Tumor Cells Cultured Genetics medicine Humans Tissue Distribution Antigens Molecular Biology Gene Leucine Zippers ATF3 Genome Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction Alternative splicing food and beverages Blotting Northern Phenotype Protein Structure Tertiary DNA-Binding Proteins Alternative Splicing Luminescent Proteins Phenotype Microscopy Fluorescence Models Chemical RNA splicing Cancer research

description

We describe here the definition and characterization of antigen CT-8/HOM-TES-85 encoded by a previously unknown gene and identified by serological expression screening using antibodies from a seminoma patient. Intriguingly, the leucine zipper region of CT-8/HOM-TES-85 shows an atypical amphipathy with clusters of hydrophobic residues that is exclusively shared by the N-myc proto-oncogene. CT-8/HOM-TES-85 gene is tightly silenced in normal tissues except for testis. However, it is frequently activated in human neoplasms of different types including lung cancer, ovarian cancer, melanoma and glioma. Endogenous as well as heterogeneously expressed CT-8/HOM-TES-85 targets predominantly to the nucleus forming a distinctive speckled pattern of nuclear dots arranged in macromolecular structures. By co-localization studies these speckles were identified as loci of transcriptional activity and splicing, suggesting that CT-8/HOM-TES-85 may be involved in these processes. The aberrant expression of CT-8/HOM-TES-85 in human neoplasms might therefore be involved in cancer associated alterations of transcriptional or post-transcriptional processes and thus may disclose new mechanisms involved in the manifestation of the cancer phenotype.

year	journal	country	edition	language
2002-05-28	Oncogene

https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.onc.1205481