Assignment of mimecan gene (OGN) to human chromosome band 9q22 by in situ hybridization.

Mimecan is a small leucine-rich proteoglycan originally isolated in a truncated form as a bone-associated glycoprotein, osteoglycin (Madisen et al., 1990). It was later shown to be a corneal keratan sulfate proteoglycan (KSPG), present in other tissues without keratan sulfate chains (Funderburgh et al., 1997). Along with dermatan sulfate proteoglycans and collagens, KSPGs play a key role in the development and maintenance of corneal transparency. Recently, we isolated genomic clones and determined the genomic organization of the bovine mimecan gene, as well as a partial genomic structure of the human mimecan gene, OGN (Tasheva et al., 1999). By using fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), we have assigned OGN to human chromosome band 9q22. Materials and methods