title: Molecular characterization of the feline T-cell receptor γ alternate reading frame protein (TARP) ortholog.
abstract: T-cell receptor γ alternate reading frame protein (TARP) is expressed by human prostate epithelial, prostate cancer, and mammary cancer cells, but is not found in normal mammary tissue. To date, this protein has only been described in humans. Additionally, no animal model has been established to investigate the potential merits of TARP as tumor marker or a target for adoptive tumor immunotherapy. In this study conducted to characterize feline T-cell receptor γ sequences, constructs very similar to human TARP transcripts were obtained by RACE from the spleen and prostate gland of cats. Transcription of TARP in normal, hyperplastic, and neoplastic feline mammary tissues was evaluated by conventional RT-PCR. In felines similarly to the situation reported in humans, a C-region encoding two open reading frames is spliced to a J-region gene. In contrast to humans, the feline J-region gene was found to be a pseudogene containing a deletion within its recombination signal sequence. Our findings demonstrated that the feline TARP ortholog is transcribed in the prostate gland and mammary tumors but not normal mammary tissues as is the case with human TARP.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Veterinary Pathology, Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen, 35392 Giessen, Germany. alexander.weiss@cvua-mel.de
authors.forename: Alexander Th A
authors.initials: AT
authors.lastname: Weiss
authors.forename: Marie-Charlotte
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: von Deetzen
authors.forename: Werner
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Hecht
authors.forename: Manfred
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Reinacher
authors.forename: Achim D
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Gruber
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000235:genetics*; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D002415:Cats / Q000235:genetics*; D018076:DNA, Complementary / Q000235:genetics; D005260:Female; D016219:Immunotherapy, Adoptive / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009687:Nuclear Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D021141:Nucleic Acid Amplification Techniques; D016366:Open Reading Frames / Q000235:genetics; D011467:Prostate / Q000378:metabolism; D011544:Pseudogenes; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D018076:DNA, Complementary; D009687:Nuclear Proteins; C413185:TARP