Characterization of a highly conserved gene (OS4) amplified with CDK4 in human sarcomas.
Amplification and overexpression of genes involved in cellular growth control occur frequently in human cancers. Here, we report characterization of the full length OS4 cDNA derived from 12q13-q15 (Su et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 91: 9121-9125, 1994), a region frequently amplified in sarcomas and brain tumors. This cDNA consists of 4833 base pairs (bp) encoding an open reading frame (ORF) of 283 amino acids. The ORF predicts a water-soluble acidic (pI 5.50) polypeptide with a molecular weight of 31759. Database searches revealed highly significant similarity between OS4 and eight proteins predicted from genomic sequences of Caenorhabditis elegans, Schizosaccaharomyces pombe, and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Thus, OS4 defines a novel evolutionarily conserved gene superfamily. Northern and database analyses revealed OS4 transcripts in numerous human tissues demonstrating its ubiquitous expression. We also observed overexpression of OS4 in three cancer cell lines with amplification of this gene. Furthermore, we detected OS4 amplification in 5/5 primary sarcomas with known amplification of the closely linked marker CDK4. These results demonstrate that the highly conserved OS4 gene is frequently included in the 12q13-q15 amplicon and may contribute to the development of a subset of sarcomas.
Su
Y A
YA
Laboratory of Cancer Genetics, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA.
Lee
M M
MM
Hutter
C M
CM
Meltzer
P S
PS
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D015139:Blotting, Southern; D017124:Conserved Sequence; D051358:Cyclin-Dependent Kinase 4; D018844:Cyclin-Dependent Kinases / Q000235:genetics*; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D005784:Gene Amplification; D015972:Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009687:Nuclear Proteins; D010749:Phosphoprotein Phosphatases; D011506:Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*; D011518:Proto-Oncogene Proteins; D012441:Saccharomyces cerevisiae / Q000235:genetics; D012509:Sarcoma / Q000235:genetics*; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D014018:Tissue Distribution; D014407:Tumor Cells, Cultured
D009687:Nuclear Proteins; D011506:Proteins; D011518:Proto-Oncogene Proteins; C495900:CDK4 protein, human; D051358:Cyclin-Dependent Kinase 4; D018844:Cyclin-Dependent Kinases; C108580:CTDSP2 protein, human; D010749:Phosphoprotein Phosphatases