Abstract
The Aspergillus NIMA kinase plays a key role in controlling entrance into mitosis, and recent evidence suggests that mammalian NIMA-related kinases perform similar functions. We report here the cloning of the mouse nek3 and nek4 genes. Mouse nek3 is probably the ortholog of the partially sequenced, human nek3, whereas murine nek4 cDNA is probably the ortholog of human STK2. Nek4 is highly conserved between mouse and human, whereas Nek3 is somewhat less conserved (96.5 and 88% identity in the kinase domains, respectively). Northern analysis shows preferential expression of nek3 in mitotically active tissue, whereas nek4 is highly abundant in the testis. Within the developing testicular germ cells, in-situ analysis demonstrated that nek1, 2 and 4 exhibit differential patterns of expression, suggesting overlapping, but non-identical functions. Linkage analysis, using the mouse recombinant inbred strain panel (BXD), was used to localize nek1, 2 and 3. nek1 was mapped between Cpe and D8Mit8 on chromosome 8 at around 32 cM, nek2 was mapped to the distal region of chromosome 1, and nek3 was mapped to the most centromeric region of chromosome 8. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 127-137 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | Gene |
| Volume | 234 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 24 Jun 1999 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We thank Ron Wides for critical reading of the manuscript. We also thank Uri Nir of our department, Maria Rozakis-Adcock, Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute, Toronto, and Patanjal Sankhavaram, Yale University, for providing mouse testis, mouse embryonic and human testis cDNA libraries, respectively. This research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation founded by the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities Center for Excellence Program. B.M. is a fellow of the Israel Cancer Research Fund.
Funding
We thank Ron Wides for critical reading of the manuscript. We also thank Uri Nir of our department, Maria Rozakis-Adcock, Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute, Toronto, and Patanjal Sankhavaram, Yale University, for providing mouse testis, mouse embryonic and human testis cDNA libraries, respectively. This research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation founded by the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities Center for Excellence Program. B.M. is a fellow of the Israel Cancer Research Fund.
Keywords
- Cell cycle
- Meiosis
- Mitosis
- Phosphorylation