THE PUFFERFISH SLP-1 GENE, A NEW MEMBER OF THE SCL TAL-1 FAMILY OF TRANSCRIPTION FACTORS/

The SCL/TAL-1 gene encodes a basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcripti on factor essential for the development of all hemopoietic lineages an d also stets as a T-cell oncogene. Four related genes have been descri bed in mammals (LYL-1, TAL-2, NSCL1, and NSCL2), all of which exhibit a high degree of sequence similarity to SCL/TAL-1 in the bHLH domain a nd two of which (LYL-1 and TAL-2) have also been implicated in the pat hogenesis of T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. In this study we des cribe the identification and characterization of a pufferfish gene ter med SLP-1, which represents a new member of this gene family. The geno mic structure and sequence of SLP-1 suggests that it forms a subfamily with SCL/TAL-1 and LYL-1 and is most closely related to SCL/TAL-1. Ho wever, unlike SCL/TAL-1, SLP-I is widely expressed. Sequence analysis of a whole cosmid containing SLP-I shows that SLP-I is flanked upstrea m by a zinc huger gene and a forkhead-domain gene and downstream by a heme-oxy-genase and a RING finger gene. (C) 1998 Academic Press.