STRUCTURES AND CHROMOSOME LOCATIONS OF THE HUMAN MEF2A GENE AND A PSEUDOGENE MEF2AP

The MEF2 family of transcription factors control the expression of mus cle-specific and mitogen-induced genes. Here we describe the isolation and structure of the human MEF2A gene, The protein coding region of M EF2A is divided by 10 introns. The 3' untranslated region (UTR) is 3.7 kb in length, and it contains a region that is highly homologous with a portion of the 3' UTR of Xenopus MEF2A. A partially processed pseud ogene (MEF2AP) corresponding to MEF3A was also isolated and characteri zed. Human MEF2A was mapped by fluorescence in situ hybridization to c hromosome 15q26, and MEF2AP was mapped to chromosome 1q24-->q25.