Cloning and sequencing of canine MAGE cDNA

Melanoma antigens (MAGE) are regarded to induce tumour-specific immune resp onse and thought to be potential therapeutical agents for cancer immunother apy. We hereby report the canine MAGE cDNA cloned from the testis of a beag le dog. Canine MAGE cDNA is 1455 base pair (bp) nucleotides in length, and contains an open reading frame (ORF) of 1137 bp nucleotides encoding a prot ein of 378 amino acids. The predicted amino acid sequence has 22-49% of hom ology with other MAGE proteins. mRNA transcripts of canine MAGE were detect ed only in the melanoma and testis and not in other normal tissues of adult dog by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), indicatin g that the expression pattern of canine MAGE mRNA is similar to that of the MAGE family genes in tumor and normal tissues.