Cloning and characterization of the human IFT20 gene

• Published in: Molecular biology reports 2003-12, Vol.30 (4), p.255-260
• Main Authors: Yin, Gang, Dai, JianLiang, Ji, Chaoneng, Ni, Xiaohua, Shu, Guang, Ye, Xin, Dai, Jianfeng, Wu, Qihan, Gu, Shaohua, Xie, Yi, Zhao, Robert Chunhua, Mao, Yumin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Amino Acid Sequence; Animals; Base Sequence; Carrier Proteins - chemistry; Carrier Proteins - genetics; Carrier Proteins - metabolism; Cloning, Molecular; Genetics; Humans; Male; Mice; Molecular Sequence Data; Proteins; Sequence Alignment; Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; Tissue Distribution
• ISSN: 0301-4851; 1573-4978
• DOI: 10.1023/A:1026365124176

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.