title: Cloning and characterization of the human IFT20 gene.
abstract: Intraflagellar transport (IFT), in which molecular motors and IFT particle proteins participate, is very important in assembling and maintaining many cilia/flagella, such as the motile cilia that drive the swimming of cells and embryos, the nodal cilia that generate left-right asymmetry in vertebrate embryos, and the sensory cilia that detect sensory stimuli in some animals. Here we report the molecular cloning and characterization of a novel human cDNA that is 1060 base pair in length, encoding a putative protein of 158 amino acid residues which shares high homology to Mus musculus intraflagellar transport protein mIFT20 (Accession number AAL99202, identity 82.3%, similarity 82.9%) at protein level. Bioinformatics analysis revealed that the gene is composed of 6 exons and is located on human chromosome 17p 11.1. RT-PCR showed that this gene is expressed in human brain, lung, kidney and pancreas, and lower expression were also detected in human placenta, liver, thymus, prostate and testis.
authors.affiliation: State key laboratory of genetic engineering, Institute of Genetics, School of life sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, PR. China.
authors.forename: Gang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Yin
authors.forename: JianLiang
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Dai
authors.forename: Chaoneng
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ji
authors.forename: Xiaohua
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Ni
authors.forename: Guang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Shu
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Ye
authors.forename: Jianfeng
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Dai
authors.forename: Qihan
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Shaohua
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gu
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.forename: Robert Chunhua
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Yumin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Mao
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D002352:Carrier Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D014018:Tissue Distribution
chemical_list: D002352:Carrier Proteins; C487991:IFT20 protein, human