A large-scale functional approach to uncover human genes and pathways in Drosophila

We demonstrate the feasibility of performing a systematic screen for human gene functions in Drosophila by assaying for their ability to induce overexpression phenotypes. Over 1 500 transgenic fly lines corresponding to 236 human genes have been established. In all, 51 lines are capable of eliciting a phenotype suggesting that the human genes are functional. These heterologous genes are functionally relevant as we have found a similar mutant phenotype caused either by a dominant negative mutant form of the human ribosomal protein L8 gene or by RNAi downregulation of the Drosophila RPL8. Significantly, the Drosophila RPL8 mutant can be rescued by wild-type human RPL8. We also provide genetic evidence that Drosophila RPL8 is a new member of the insulin signaling pathway. In summary, the functions of many human genes appear to be highly conserved, and the ability to identify them in Drosophila represents a powerful genetic tool for large-scale analysis of human transcripts in vivo.

Cloning and expression analysis of human reticulon 4c cDNA

RTNs (reticulons) is a gene family related to the growth and differentiation of neuroendocrine cell. This family is composed of several members such as RTN1, RTN2ar\d RTN3. RTN1 and RTN2 have been proved to have 3 transcripts with different length. Because the RTN1c cDNA was involved in the sologenesis of small cell lung carcinoma (SCLC), it was selected as a bioinformatic probe to clone novel members of RTN family with the electric hybridization assistant new-gene cloning method (EHAC). A 1677-bp cDNA was identified from human brain cDNA library. The cDNA contains an intact open reading frame (ORF) which encodes a protein of 199 amino acids. This deduced protein is highly homologous to RTN1c, RTN2c and RTN3 with identities of 64.4%, 45.8% and 50.0% respectively. This new gene was named RTN4c (GenBank accession number: AF087901). Northern hybridization showed that the full length of RTN4c transcript is about 1.8 kb. It is hardly expressed in heart, placenta, lung, spleen, thymus, testis, ovary, small

Mouse neural stem cells cultured in vitro and expressing an exogenous gene

Neural stem cells are the multipotential, self-renewing cells in central nerve system, and play an essential role in the development and differentiation of nerve system. Neural stem cells can be used to treat the nerve system diseases, especially, the transplantation of neural stem cells to rescue the degenerated neural cells has become a very promising therapeutic way. We successfully cultured neural stem cells isolated from the brains of embryonic mice in vitro and determined their distribution in the E17 mice brains. The neural stem cells were transfected with adenoviral vector carrying GFP (green fluorescence protein) gene and then highly expressed the exogenous gene. It paves the way for gene therapy of degenerative nerve system diseases.

Cloning and characterization of a gene encoding phage-related tail protein (PrTP) of endosymbiont Wolbachia

Wolbachia is an obligatory, maternally inherited intracellular bacterium, known to infect a wide range of arthropods. It has been implicated in causing cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI), parthenogenesis, the feminization of genetic males and male-killing in different hosts. However, the molecular mechanisms by which this fastidious bacterium causes these reproductive abnormalities have not yet been determined. In this study, we report on the cloning and characterization of the gene encoding phage-related tail protein (PrTP) from Wolbachia in Drosophila melanogaster CantonS (wMelCS) and from Wolbachia in Drosophila melanogaster yw67c23 (wMel) by representational difference analysis (RDA) and ligation-mediated PCR (LM-PCR). The functionality of a bipartite nuclear localization signal sequence (NLS) of the gene was also successfully tested in Drosophila S2 cells. PrTP expression in various strains of Wolbachia was investigated. Our results suggest that PrTP may not induce CI directly. However, the

Cloning, tissue expression pattern characterization and chromosome localization of human peptide methionine sulfoxide reductase cDNA

Oxidation and reduction of some amino acids are one of the molecular mechanisms for regulating the function of proteins. The oxidation of methionine (Met) to methionine sulfoxide (Met(O)) results in decreasing or loss of the biological activity of related proteins. It was found that peptide methionine sulfoxide reductase (msrA) can reduce Met(O) to Met and therefore restored the biological function of the oxidized proteins. To reveal the methionine oxidation-reduction mechanism in human body, in this study, the cDNA sequence of bovine msrA was used as an information-probe to screen the human EST database. Based on a contig assembled from homologous ESTs, a 1 256-bp human MSRA cDNA was cloned from several human cDNA libraries. The cDNA contains an open reading frame (ORF) of 705 bp in length, which encodes 235 amino acid residues. Homology comparison revealed that human MSRA shares 88% and 61% identities with bovine and Escherichia coli msrA protein respectively. Expression pattern analysis revealed a

Isolation and identification of a novel STR(D17S2204)in the vicinity of NF1 locus

Using a synthetic oligonucleotide （dA-dC）15 as a probe to screen a probe pool made by microdissected human chromosome band 17q11-q12, a DNA fragment containing （CA）16 was isolated, which is a novel short tandem repeat （STR） determined by searching in the GenBank and GDB. It has 8 allelic types with a PIC value of 0.61. The novel STR is conformed with Mendelian segregation according to the linkage analysis of a three-generation neurofibromatosis type Ⅰ （NF1） pedigree. The STR was localized at chromosome band 17q11-q12 in the vicinity of NF1 gene by FISH analysis. The accession number of the STR in GenBank and GDB is G32112 and D17S2204 respectively.

SGK and 14-3-3 protein are involved in the serine/threonine phosphorylation mechanism for TPO/MPL signal transduction

Thrombopioetin (TPO), the critical regulator of platelet production, acts by binding to its cell surface receptor, c-Mpl. Yeast two-hybrid screening was performed to isolate the proteins interacting with the cytoplasmic domain of c-Mpl. 48 positive clones were isolated from 5 xxxxxxxxxx106 independent transformants. The results of sequence analysis demonstrate that they represent 13 different protein encoding sequences. Among them there are a partial coding sequence of serine/threonine protein kinase SGK (serum and glucocorticoid-inducible kinase ) and 14-3-3 theta protein partial coding sequence. GST-pull-down assay and co-im-munoprecipitation in mammal cells have confirmed the interaction between these two proteins and c-Mpl. By constructing a series of deleted c-Mpl cytoplasmic domain, the interaction region in c-Mpl cytoplasmic tail was localized in amino acids 523-554. At the same time, the directed interaction between SGK and 14-3-3 proteins also has been verified by yeast two-hybrid assay. The

Cloning, expression and mapping of the full-length cDNA of human CCTβ subunit

Chaperonins assist the proper folding of target proteins without being a part of the substrates. The eukaryotic cytosolic chaperonin, CCT-Chaperonin Containing TCP-1 (tailless complex polypeptide-1), is mainly involved in the formation of cytoskeletal proteins and is essential for cell viability. Mammalian CCT is commonly a protein complex composed of 7-9 subunit species. We have isolated a novel full-length cDNA from human testis cDNA library. This cDNA of 1935 bp contains a 1605 bp open reading frame (ORF) encoding 535 amino acids (aa). The deduced protein of the cDNA is highly homologous to the CCTβ subunit of saccharomyces cerevisiae, schizosaccharomyces pombe, caenorhabditis elegans and mouse, etc. Especially high homology (97%) is found between the deduced protein and mouse CCTβhomology, the protein encoded by the new gene was proposed to be a human CCTβ subunit. Northern hybridization showed that human CCTβ gene is expressed as a transcript of about 2.0 kb in various tissues. Overexpression

Molecular cloning and expression analysis of a novel human cDNA fragment encoding a putative Ser/Thr protein kinase

A novel full-length cDNA encoding a putative serine/threonine kinase has been isolated from a human testis cDNA library. A nucleotide sequence of 1 225 bp length has been determined containing an open reading frame of 1 044 nucleotides (encoding 348 amino acids). In view of its degree of homology to members of the Ser/Thr protein kinase family and the closest relationship to Mus musculus STK-1, the predicted product was designated by the name of HUMSTK-1. Its mRNA is present in large amounts in thymus, and small amounts in testis,small intestine and colon.

Cloning of human cytokine signal transduction inhibitor gene humSOCS-2

An EST （gb/AA115239） with high identity to the mouse cytokine signal transduction inhibitor gene mmSOCS-2 was selected in GenBank EST database by the homologous screening method. The cDNA with the same sequence of the EST was got in human placenta cDNA library by PCR and a 1011 bp cDNA fragment was selected using above cDNA as probes to perform walking hybridization in placenta cDNA library. The cDNA fragment contains one 594 bp open reading frame （ORF） which encodes 198 amino acid residues. It was proved to be novel after NCBI database screening. Homology comparison showed that this gene has 93% identity to mmSOCS-2 at the amino acid level and it has high identities to other related genes in SH2 domain and SOCS box, so it was named humSOCS-2 and the accession number in GenBank is gb/AF020590. The expression analysis showed that the gene is expressed obviously higher in prostate than in other 15 human tissues.

Cloning of a novel human zinc finger protein(ZNF199)cDNA

ZINC finger proteins play an important role in the regulation of gene expression by binding to DNA/RNA in a sequence-specific manner. Now nearly 200 human zinc finger genes have been cloned. According to the difference of the conservative domain, the zinc finger proteins can be classified into several types.Most of zinc finger proteins belong to the C2H2 type containing the consensus amino acid sequence YECX2CX3FX5LX2HX3HTGEKP, which is rather conservative especially in the link region between two zinc finger motifs （TGEKP）