Identification of the human homologue of mouse KIF4, a kinesin superfamilymotor protein

A combination of RT-PCR with cDNA library screening led to the identificati on of the human homologue of murine KIF4 (mKIF4), a microtubule-based motor protein. The nucleotide sequence of human KIF4 (hKIF4) comprised part of t he 5' untranslated region (UTR), a long open reading frame (ORF) encoding 1 232 amino acids, and the entire 3' UTR. Homologies with mKIF4 were 82% and 85% for nucleotides and amino acids, respectively. A single transcript of 5 .0 kb was highly expressed in hematopoietic tissues including fetal liver, spleen, and thymus, and adult thymus and bone marrow. Comparison of the ORF with that of mKIF4 revealed some dissimilarities in the putative cargo bin ding domain which might affect binding specificities. (C) 2000 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.