An overview of the MAGE gene family with the identification of all human members of the family

The first human members of the MAGE gene family that have been described ar e expressed in tumor cells but silent in normal adult tissues except in the male germ line. Hence, they encode strictly tumor-specific antigens that r epresent attractive targets for cancer immunotherapy, However, other member s of the family were recently found to be expressed in normal cells, indica ting that the family is larger and more disparate than initially expected. We therefore performed a database screening to identify all of the recorded members of both classes of human MAGE genes. This report provides an overv iew of the MAGE family and proposes a general nomenclature for all of the M AGE genes identified thus far. We found that the MAGE-D genes were particul arly well conserved between man and mouse, suggesting that they exert impor tant functions. In addition, the genomic structure of the MACE-D genes indi cates that one of them corresponds to the founder member of the family, and that all of the other MAGE genes are retrogenes derived from that common a ncestral gene. Intriguingly, the COOH-terminal domain of MAGE-D3 was found to be identical to trophinin, a previously described protein believed to be involved in embryo implantation.