A GENE IN THE CHROMOSOMAL REGION 3P21 WITH GREATLY REDUCED EXPRESSION IN LUNG-CANCER IS SIMILAR TO THE GENE FOR UBIQUITIN-ACTIVATING ENZYME

The chromosomal region 3p21 is thought to be the site of a lung tumor suppressor gene. We recently cloned a gene from this region that has greatly reduced expression in almost all lung tumor cell lines examined, in spite of being widely expressed in a variety of other tumor and nontumor cell types. We report here the sequence of this gene and show that it has significant homology to the genes encoding the ubiquitin-activating enzymes of three species, including humans. This suggests it is a second, autosomal member of this gene family in humans and may play a role in the ubiquitin conjugation pathway, which is of central importance in all eukaryotes.