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  • Original Paper
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A novel tumour associated leucine zipper protein targeting to sites of gene transcription and splicing

Oncogene volume 21, pages 3879–3888 (2002)Cite this article

Abstract

We describe here the definition and characterization of antigen CT-8/HOM-TES-85 encoded by a previously unknown gene and identified by serological expression screening using antibodies from a seminoma patient. Intriguingly, the leucine zipper region of CT-8/HOM-TES-85 shows an atypical amphipathy with clusters of hydrophobic residues that is exclusively shared by the N-myc proto-oncogene. CT-8/HOM-TES-85 gene is tightly silenced in normal tissues except for testis. However, it is frequently activated in human neoplasms of different types including lung cancer, ovarian cancer, melanoma and glioma. Endogenous as well as heterogeneously expressed CT-8/HOM-TES-85 targets predominantly to the nucleus forming a distinctive speckled pattern of nuclear dots arranged in macromolecular structures. By co-localization studies these speckles were identified as loci of transcriptional activity and splicing, suggesting that CT-8/HOM-TES-85 may be involved in these processes. The aberrant expression of CT-8/HOM-TES-85 in human neoplasms might therefore be involved in cancer associated alterations of transcriptional or post-transcriptional processes and thus may disclose new mechanisms involved in the manifestation of the cancer phenotype.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Mr Uli Luxemburger, Mrs Evi Regitz and Mr Michael Becker for excellent technical assistance. This work was supported in parts by the Sonderforschungsbereich 399 and 432, by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (TU 115/1-2 and SA 776/2-1), the BIOMED II program and the 5th FP of the European Commission.

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Author notes

  1. Özlem Türeci and Ugur Sahin: Ö Türeci and U Sahin contributed equally to this paper

Authors and Affiliations

  1. III. Medizinische Klinik und Poliklinik, Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz, Mainz, Germany

    Özlem Türeci, Ugur Sahin, Michael Koslowski, Carolin Bell & Pia Ballweber

  2. I. Medizinische Klinik und Poliklinik, Universitätskliniken des Saarlandes, Saarlandes, Germany

    Benedikt Buss, Carsten Zwick, Thomas Eberle & Michael Pfreundschuh

  3. Institut für Humangenetik, Universität Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany

    Margit Zuber

  4. Abteilung für Gynäkologie, Stadtklink Baden-Baden, Baden-Baden, Germany

    Carlos Villena-Heinsen

  5. Abteilung für Pathologie, Klinikum Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany

    Gerhard Seitz

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  1. Özlem Türeci
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Correspondence to Ugur Sahin.

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Türeci, Ö., Sahin, U., Koslowski, M. et al. A novel tumour associated leucine zipper protein targeting to sites of gene transcription and splicing. Oncogene 21, 3879–3888 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.onc.1205481

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