Published online Sep 15, 2003. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v9.i9.1892
Revised: January 4, 2003
Accepted: January 16, 2003
Published online: September 15, 2003
AIM: To identify esophageal cancer related gene2 (ECRG2) associated proteins and their possible interactions with ECRG2 gene.
METHODS: In the yeast forward two-hybrid system, ECRG2 was fused with the DNA-binding domain (DBD) of Gal4 and human fetal liver cDNA library was fused with the transcriptional activation domain (AD) of Gal4. We performed a high-stringency scale procedure to screen ECRG2 against human fetal liver cDNA library and characterized positives by sequence analysis.
RESULTS: We found the following 9 putatively associated proteins. They were metallothionein2A, metallothionein1H, metallothionein1G, ferritin, erythrocyte membrane protein band4.2, mitochondrial ribosomal protein S12, hypothetical protein FLJ10101, and a novel gene whose cDNA was found to have no strong homology to any other previously characterized gene whose DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank accession number is AF422192 mapped to human chromosome 14q31.
CONCLUSION: MT, a potential interaction partner for ECRG2, might be involved in the regulation of cell proliferation and apoptosis, and in various physiological processes. Determination of a reliability score for each single protein-protein interaction, especially interaction of ECRG2 and MT, permits the assignment of ECRG2 and unannotated proteins to biological pathways. A further understanding of the association between ECRG2 and MT should facilitate the functions of ECRG2 gene.