NUCLEAR LOCATION AND CELL-CYCLE REGULATION OF THE BRCA2 PROTEIN

Women carrying a germ-line mutation in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes have a high risk of developing breast cancer, and loss of the wild-type alle le in tumors suggests that these genes function as tumor suppressor ge nes. The BRCA2 gene encodes a 3418-amino acid protein with no signific ant sequence similarity to any known protein, To begin to elucidate th e cellular role of BRCA2, we have raised antibodies to the BRCA2 prote in and used these to study its subcellular localization and expression , We show that BRCA2 is a nuclear protein expressed in response to cel l proliferation and that BRCA2 expression is initiated before DNA synt hesis.