In silico and expression analysis of urg-4/urgcp gene in different cancer cells

Abstract

Upregulated gene 4 (URG-4/URGCP) located in chromosome 7 (7p13), was originally suggested as one of the HBxAg upregulated genes in hepatoma cells and implicated in tumorogenesis process in different cells. In this study we analyzed URG4/URGCP expression at mRNA and protein level in various cancer cell lines namely MG-63 (Human Osteosarcoma), Saos-2 (Osteosarcoma), MCF-7 (Human Breast Carcinoma), HeLa (Human Cervical Cancer), PC3 (Human Prostate Cancer), DU-145 (Human Prostate Cancer), HT-29 (Human Colon Carcinoma), HL-60 (Human Myeloid Leukemia) and Ishikawa (Human Endometrial Adenocarcinoma). The maximum URG-4/URGCP expression was obtained in MG-63 cells (nearly 8.0 fold). It was investigated that HL-60 cells were expressed the maximum protein level of URG-4/URGCP gene (nearly two-fold). Bioinformatics analysis of URG-4/URGCP variants on the mRNA and protein sequences showed that URG-4/URGCP has 5 variants (Variant-1 (3609 bp; 922 aa), Variant-2 (3831 bp; 888 aa), Variant-3 (3036 bp; 931 aa), Variant-4 (3957 bp; 888 aa) and Variant-5 (4058 bp; 888 aa). Variant-2, -4 and -5 encode the same protein with 888 amino acids.. The expression of Variant-2 and -4 of URG-4/URGCP was detected in HT-29, PC3, DU-145, MCF-7 and Hep3B cells at mRNA level using RT-PCR strategy.