title: Characterization of a splice variant of metastasis-associated h-mts1 (S100A4) gene expressed in human infiltrating carcinomas of the breast.
abstract: The h-mts1 (S100A4) is a member of the S100 gene family, coding for a calcium-binding protein. It is a metastasis-associated gene whose expression shows strong correlation with the proliferative potential and invasive and metastatic ability of cancers. In a proportion of human intraductal carcinomas of the breast, a shorter variant h-mts1 transcript (h-mts1v) of approximately 450 nucleotides is expressed. We have characterized the transcript using reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction employing exon-specific oligonucleotides. We show here that the noncoding exon 1a/1b is lost in the variant cDNA. Exons 2 and 3, which code for the protein, seem to be present in the variant isoform. The RT-PCR products obtained using exons 2- and 3-specific oligonucleotides showed a high degree of sequence homology with exons 2 and 3 of the h-mts1 gene. The expression of the variant transcript could be influencing disease progression, albeit not as effectively as the normal unspliced h-mts1 transcript.
authors.affiliation: Istituto Di Patologia Generale, Centro Di Studio Sulla Patologia Cellulare Del C.N.R., University of Milan, Italy.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Albertazzi
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Cajone
authors.forename: G V
authors.initials: GV
authors.lastname: Sherbet
mesh_terms: D001483:Base Sequence; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics* / Q000473:pathology; D018270:Carcinoma, Ductal, Breast / Q000235:genetics* / Q000473:pathology; D017931:DNA Primers; D005091:Exons; D006367:HeLa Cells; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis / Q000235:genetics; D012326:RNA Splicing; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D000071999:S100 Calcium-Binding Protein A4; D009418:S100 Proteins / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D017931:DNA Primers; D000071999:S100 Calcium-Binding Protein A4; D009418:S100 Proteins; C077591:S100A4 protein, human