Localization of the human anterior gradient-2 gene (AGR2) to chromosome band 7p21.3 by radiation hybrid mapping and fluorescencein situ hybridisation.

Kuang et al. (1998) isolated 29 gene fragments that were coexpressed with ER (estrogen receptor) in breast carcinoma cell lines using the technique of suppression subtractive hybridization. One of these gene fragments, DEME-2 (GenBank EST accession AA506763), could be identified as a part of the human Anterior Gradient-2 (AGR2) gene, the human homologue of the Xenopus laevis cement gland gene Xenopus Anterior Gradient-2 (XAG-2, GenBank accession AF025474; Aberger et al., 1998; Thompson et al., 1998). The 1,702 nucleotide cDNA sequence of AGR2 was obtained by combination of sequence data derived from three individual mRNA transcripts differing in their 3)-untranslated regions (GenBank accession No. AF007791 for AGR2/C, AF038452 for AGR2/I and AF038451 for AGR2/R; Thompson et al., 1998). Detailed chromosome mapping of this gene will be important to explore its genomic organization, its regulation and therefore its function in hormone-responsive breast carcinomas. Materials and methods