title: Introduction of novel splice variants for CASC18 gene and its relation to the neural differentiation.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  CASC18 along with APPL2, OCC-1 and NUAK1 flanking genes are located in 12q23.3 locus which is known as a potential cancer predisposition locus. Only an uncharacterized EST was initially reported for CASC18 and it was crucial to find its full length sequence and function.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In an attempt to search for the CASC18's full-length gene sequence, other related ESTs were bioinformatically collected and four novel splice variants (designated as; CASC18-A, -B, -C and -D) were deduced and some were experimentally validated. Two transcription start sites and two alternative polyadenylation sites were deduced for CASC18 gene, using EST data mining and RACE method. CASC18-A and CASC18-D were exclusively expressed in neural cell lines and CASC18-D expression level was gradually increased during the NT2 differentiation to the neuron-like cells. Consistently, overexpression of CASC18-D variant in NT2 cells resulted in remarkable up-regulation of PAX6 neural differentiation marker, suggesting a crucial role of this variant in neural differentiation.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Here, we introduced seven novel transcription variants for human CASC18 gene in which CASC18-D has the potential of being used as a neural cell differentiation marker.
authors.affiliation: Genetics Department, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Majid
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mehravar
authors.affiliation: Genetics Department, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Meisam
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jafarzadeh
authors.affiliation: Genetics Department, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Maryam
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kay
authors.affiliation: Genetics Department, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Hadi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Najafi
authors.affiliation: Genetics Department, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Fahimeh
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Hosseini
authors.affiliation: Genetics Department, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Seyed Javad
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Mowla
authors.affiliation: Genetics Department, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran. Electronic address: soltanib@modares.ac.ir.
authors.forename: Bahram M
authors.initials: BM
authors.lastname: Soltani
mesh_terms: D017398:Alternative Splicing; D002454:Cell Differentiation / Q000235:genetics*; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D002874:Chromosome Mapping; D002881:Chromosomes, Human, Pair 12 / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D020224:Expressed Sequence Tags; D056426:Genetic Loci; D015894:Genome, Human; D006801:Humans; D058953:Neural Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism*; D000071841:PAX6 Transcription Factor / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D011494:Protein Kinases / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D062085:RNA, Long Noncoding / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D012097:Repressor Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D000071841:PAX6 Transcription Factor; C000605730:PAX6 protein, human; D062085:RNA, Long Noncoding; D012097:Repressor Proteins; D011494:Protein Kinases; C470845:NUAK1 protein, human
keywords: CASC18 gene; Long non-coding RNA; NT2 differentiation, Oct4-A gene