Kindlin: Proteins and Enzymes

Due to a concerted effort to identify biomarkers for lung and colon carcinomas by genome-wide transcriptional profiling, the identification and cloning of one such gene as well as two additional closely related genes was achieved. Due to the strong sequence homology to the C. elegans UNC-112 a novel gene gene was named URP1, for UNC-112 related protein. Another novel related gene, URP2 and the previously discovered MIG-2 gene was also identified. Transcriptional analysis shows that only URP1 is significantly differentially regulated, being over-expressed in 70% of the colon carcinomas and 60% of the lung carcinomas tested. Quantification of URP1 expression by qRT-PCR showed up-regulation of the gene by 60-fold in lung tumors and up to nearly 6-fold in colon tumors. Northern blot analysis of URP1 indicates that normal expression is restricted to neuromuscular tissues. In contrast, the expression of URP2 appears to be confined primarily to tissues of the immune system. URP1 has the potential to be one of the most important prognostic and diagnostic markers of colon or lung cancer.