Genomics
Recently, a novel family of genes with a region of homology to the mouse T locus, which is known to play a crucial, and conserved, role in vertebrate development, has been discovered. The region of homology has been named the T-box. The T-box domain of the prototypical T locus product is associated with sequence-specific DNA binding activity. In this report, we have characterized four members of the...
The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae RAD52 gene is involved in DNA double-strand break repair and mitotic/meiotic recombination. The N-terminal amino acid sequence of yeast S. cerevisiae, Schizosaccharomyces pombe, and Kluyveromyces lactis and chicken is highly conserved. Using the technology of mixed oligonucleotide primed amplification of cDNA (MOPAC), two mouse RAD52 homologous cDNA fragments were...
A familial early-onset breast cancer gene (BRCA1) has been localized to chromosome 17q21. To characterize this region and to aid in the identification of the BRCA1 gene, a physical map of a region of 1.0-1.5 Mb between the EDH17B1 and the PPY loci on chromosome 17q21 was generated. The physical map is composed of a yeast artificial chromosome (YAC) and P1 phage contig with one gap. The majority of...
The human genome is composed of long-range G+C% (GC%) mosaic structures related to chromosome bands. We found the human MHC locus to be an example of megabase-level GC% mosaic structures and predicted a possible boundary of the megabase-level domains within an undercharacterized 450-kb region harboring the junction of MHC classes II and III. Chromosome walking of the 450-kb region and base-compositional...
Somatic deletions of chromosome 3p occur at high frequencies in cancers of kidney, breast, cervix, head and neck, nasopharynx, and lung. The frequency of 3p deletion in lung cancer approaches 100% among small cell lesions and 70 to 80% in non-small cell lesions. This evidence strongly implies that one or more tumor suppressor genes of potentially widespread significance reside within the deleted region(s)...
Neurofibromatosis 1 maps to chromosome band 17q11.2, and the NF1 locus has been partially characterized. Even though the full-length NF1 cDNA has been sequenced, the complete genomic structure of the NF1 gene has not been elucidated. The 5' end of NF1 is embedded in a CpG island containing a NotI restriction site, and the remainder of the gene lies in the adjacent 350-kb NotI fragment. In our efforts...
A complete overlapping clone map of a 1.7-Mb region from DBH to D9S67 that includes the TSC1 candidate region has been constructed. The map includes YAC and cosmid clones, contains STS approximately every 50 kb on average, and establishes the order of five previously unordered loci. The overall physical length of this segment of chromosome 9q34 (1.7 Mb) is significantly less than expected compared...
The nervous and immune systems share many functional and molecular similarities, including shared surface antigens, secretions of soluble factors, and cross-modulatory effects. We have identified previously a novel mRNA termed F5, which is expressed only in activated T lymphocytes and mature, postmitotic neurons. Tissue specificity and sequence conservation suggest an important function for F5 in...
A high-resolution cytogenetic map of the short arm of chromosome 1 with newly isolated 411 cosmid markers was constructed by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH). These markers were scattered throughout chromosome 1p, but they were preferentially concentrated on R-band dominant regions such as 1p36, 1p34, 1p32, 1p22, and 1p13. Among these markers, 197 were localized on chromosome band 1p36, a...
In this report, we describe the successful application of a rapid and efficient procedure, based on subtractive hybridization and PCR amplification, for generating microsatellite-based markers directly from yeast artificial chromosomes (YACs). This strategy, termed MATS (marker addition through subtraction), exploits the fact that the only difference between a yeast host strain harboring a YAC and...
We have set out to produce a comprehensive comparative map between human chromosome 9 (HSA9) and the laboratory mouse. The mouse homologues of 50 loci that were known to map to HSA9 were mapped by interspecific backcross linkage analysis. Ten loci from the short arm of HSA9 were mapped, and 40 from HSA9q, with 24 markers coming from the HSA9q33-q34 region-a part of the chromosome known to be very...
The ubiquitously expressed upstream stimulatory factor (USF) involved in the transcription of a wide variety of cellular genes is defined as dimers of c-myc-related proteins, composed of a basic helix-loop-helix/leucine zipper region. The USF family consists of different members that split into two groups: MLTF or USF1 and USF2 or FIP. We present here evidence that USF1 and USF2 are distinct closely...
Ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF) has recently been found to share receptor components with, and to be structurally related to, a family of broadly acting cytokines, including interleukin-6, leukemia inhibitory factor, and oncostatin M. However, the CNTF receptor complex also includes a CNTF-specific component known as CNTF receptor α (CNTFRα). Here we describe the molecular cloning of the human...