Molecular cloning and characterization of a RING-H2 finger protein, ANAPC11, the human homolog of yeast Apc11p

Yeast Apc11p together with Rbx1 and Roc2/SAG define a new class of RING-H2 fingers in a superfamily of E3 ubiquitin ligases. The human homolog of Apc1 1p, ANAPC11 was identified during a large-scale partial sequencing of a hum an liver cancer cDNA library and partial characterization was performed. Th is 514 bp full-length cDNA has a predicted open reading frame (ORF) encodin g 84 amino acids. The ORF codes for ANAPC11, the human anaphase promoting c omplex subunit 11 (yeast APC11 homolog), which possesses a RING-H2 finger m otif and exhibits sequence similarity to subunits of E3 ubiquitin ligase co mplexes. In Northern blot hybridization with poly(A) RNA of various human t issues using radio-labelled ANAPC11 cDNA probe, we found strong signals det ected in skeletal muscle and heart; moderate signals detected in brain, kid ney, and liver; and detectable but low signals in colon, thymus, spleen, sm all intestine, placenta, lung, and peripheral blood leukocyte. The ANAPC11 gene is located at the human chromosome 17q25. ANAPC11 is distributed diffu sely in the cytoplasm and nucleus with discrete accumulation in granular st ructures in all the cell lines (AML 12, HepG2, and C2C12) transfected. Expr ession level of ANAPC11 is found higher in certain types of cancer determin ed in the RNA dot blot experiment. (C) 2001 Wiley-Liss, Inc.