Alternative titles; symbols
HGNC Approved Gene Symbol: GMFG
Cytogenetic location: 19q13.2 Genomic coordinates (GRCh38) : 19:39,328,359-39,336,043 (from NCBI)
Glia maturation factor-beta (GMFB; 601713) is a 17-kD protein that was initially identified as a growth and differentiation factor acting on neurons and glia in vertebrate brain. By searching an EST database for sequences related to GMFB, Asai et al. (1998) identified cDNAs encoding a protein that they designated GMF-gamma. The predicted 142-amino acid protein is 82% identical to GMF-beta and contains the 3 cysteine residues considered to be crucial for GMF-beta biologic activity. Northern blot analysis revealed that the GMF-gamma gene was expressed as a 0.9-kb mRNA predominantly in lung, heart, and placenta. An additional low-abundance 1.2-kb transcript was detected in heart and skeletal muscle. Independently, Mao et al. (1998) identified a cDNA corresponding to GMF-gamma, which they referred to as a GMF-beta homolog, among a collection of cDNAs expressed in hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells.
Peters et al. (1999) stated that the GMFG gene had been mapped to 19q13.2.
Exclusion Studies
Given the putative role of GMF-gamma in cell differentiation and proliferation and its map location in a region that is frequently deleted in human malignant gliomas, Peters et al. (1999) considered it a candidate for a glioma tumor suppressor gene. Peters et al. (1999) determined the genomic structure of the human GMFG gene and performed mutation screening in a series of 41 gliomas with and without allelic loss of chromosome 19q. No mutations were detected.
Asai, K., Fujita, K., Yamamoto, M., Hotta, T., Morikawa, M., Kokubo, M., Moriyama, A., Kato, T. Isolation of novel human cDNA (hGMF-gamma) homologous to glia maturation factor-beta gene. Biochim. Biophys. Acta 1396: 242-244, 1998. [PubMed: 9545571] [Full Text: https://doi.org/10.1016/s0167-4781(97)00222-4]
Mao, M., Fu, G., Wu, J.-S., Zhang, Q.-H., Zhou, J., Kan, L.-X., Huang, Q.-H., He, K.-L., Gu, B.-W., Han, Z.-G., Shen, Y., Gu, J., Yu, Y.-P., Xu, S.-H., Wang, Y.-X., Chen, S.-J., Chen, Z. Identification of genes expressed in human CD34+ hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells by expressed sequence tags and efficient full-length cDNA cloning. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 95: 8175-8180, 1998. [PubMed: 9653160] [Full Text: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.95.14.8175]
Peters, N., Smith, J. S., Tachibana, I., Lee, H. K., Pohl, U., Portier, B. P., Louis, D. N., Jenkins, R. B. The human glia maturation factor-gamma gene: genomic structure and mutation analysis in gliomas with chromosome 19q loss. Neurogenetics 2: 163-166, 1999. [PubMed: 10541589] [Full Text: https://doi.org/10.1007/s100480050077]