Cloning and identification of PHF2 cDNA and its alternatively spliced transcripts

Genes encoding proteins with PHD (plant homeodomain) finger motif (C4HC3) a re highly conserved from Arabidopsis to Homo sapiens. One of the major func tions of these genes is regulating the expression of homeotic genes during the stage of embryonic development. They play a role in cell-cycle and cell differentiation and seem to be related with some human malignant diseases, such as leukemia, A human placenta cDNA library has been screened with cDN A probe amplified by PCR, The PCR primers have been designed according to t he M96 (a mouse gene encoding a protein with PHD domain) homologous data in dbEST, A 2.1 kb insert fragment in a positive cDNA clone has been isolated and sequenced. This new full-length cDNA is named PHF2 (GenBank Acc: AF052 205), The putative protein composed of 567 aa has two typical PHD fingers a t its N-terminus. Meanwhile it is identified that there are several alterna tively spliced transcripts of PHF2 in different human tissues through the P CR amplification, Northern blot hybridization and analysis of genomic DNA s tructure.