Physical map location of the human carboxypeptidase M gene (CPM) distal to D12S375 and proximal to D12S8 at chromosome 12q15.

Abstract

Chromosome aberrations involving human chromosome 12 region q13-q15 are frequently observed in a wide variety of solid tumors, benign as well as malignant ones. In an approach to isolating through positional cloning the pathogenetically relevant genes, we have carried out directional chromosome walking from locus D12S8 toward the centromere. This resulted in the construction of a YAC contig consisting of 75 overlapping YAC clones, the composite insert DNA of which was about 6.5 Mb, and, more recently, in the identification of the high-mobility group protein gene, HMGI-C, as the target gene consistently found to be rearranged by the chromosome 12 aberrations in at least eight different mesenchymal tumor types. To establish sequence-tagged sites (STSs), we sequenced the ends of a number of YAC clones using the methodology described by Geurts et al. Within the right end sequences of CEPH mark 1 YAC 499C5, originally designated RM46 and now also known as D12S1501, a BLAST search revealed a stretch of 135 nucleotides that matches perfectly with known cDNA sequences of the human carboxypeptidase M gene, the chromosomal localization of which has not yet been established. The region of sequence identity starts at nucleotide 794 of the HUMC-ARM{sup 2} cDNA and endsmore » coinciding with a splice donor site at nucleotide 930. It should be noted that the sequence similarity extends 2 bp into the intron sequence. 11 refs., 2 figs.« less