IDENTIFICATION OF A NOVEL GENE (ECM2) ENCODING A PUTATIVE EXTRACELLULAR-MATRIX PROTEIN EXPRESSED PREDOMINANTLY IN ADIPOSE AND FEMALE-SPECIFIC TISSUES AND ITS CHROMOSOMAL LOCALIZATION TO 9Q22.3

We isolated by the differential display technique a novel gene that wa s expressed abundantly in adipose and female-specific tissues. The cDN A contained an open reading frame of 2097 nucleotides encoding a 699-a mino-acid peptide. The predicted protein showed homology to several kn own extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins such as proteoglycan, keratoca n, and decorin, Moreover, the amino acid sequence contained several po ssible functional domains that would participate in protein-protein in teractions, including an RGD sequence, a von Willebrand factor domain (VWFC), and a leucine-rich repeat. These findings suggest that this no vel protein functions in cell-cell and/or cell-ECM recognition process es. Northern blot analysis revealed expression predominantly in adipos e tissue as well as female-specific organs such as mammary gland, ovar y, and uterus among 20 human adult tissues examined. We assigned the g ene to chromosome 9q22.3 by means of fluorescence in situ hybridizatio n. (C) 1998 Academic Press.