MOUSE CHROMOSOMAL LOCATIONS OF 9 GENES ENCODING HOMOLOGS OF HUMAN PARANEOPLASTIC NEUROLOGIC DISORDER ANTIGENS

The paraneoplastic neurologic disorders (PND) are a rare group of neur ologic syndromes that arise when an immune response to systemic tumors expressing neuronal proteins (''onconeural antigens'') develops into an autoimmune neuronal degeneration. The use of patient antisera to cl one the genes encoding PND antigens has led to new insight into the me chanism of these autoimmune disorders. The tumor antigens can now be g rouped into three classes: (1) neuron-specific RNA-binding proteins, ( 2) nerve terminal vesicle-associated proteins, and (3) cytoplasmic sig naling proteins. To understand better the evolutionary relatedness of these genes and to evaluate them as candidates for inherited neurologi cal disorders, we have determined the mouse chromosomal locations of n ine of these genes-Hua, Hub, Hue, Hud, Nova1, Nova2, Natpb, Cdr2, and Cdr3. These data suggest that the Hua-Hud genes arose from gene duplic ation and dispersion, while the other genes are dispersed in the genom e. We also predict the chromosomal locations of these genes in human a nd discuss the potential of these genes as candidates for uncloned mou se and human mutations. (C) 1997 Academic Press.