Isolation of novel heart-specific genes using the BodyMap database

Two novel heart-specific genes, C3orf3 (chromosome 3 open reading frame 3) and MMGL (myomegalin-like), were isolated using BodyMap, a gene expression database based on site-directed 3' expressed sequence tags (3'-ESTs) which were collected from nonbiased cDNA libraries of various tissues. The cDNA of C3orf3 was 1667 bp and was composed of 12 exons within a 10-kb-long genomic sequence. MMGL consisted of 8 exons within a genomic sequence of over 70 kb, leading to four alternatively spliced transcripts. Both genes were strongly expressed in heart and also in skeletal muscle. C3orf3 and MMGL were mapped to 3p22 and 1q1, respectively. Subcellular localizations of their putative proteins were determined as being in the cytoplasm for C3orf3 and in the cytoplasm and nucleus for MMGL. This study showed that BodyMap is a useful database for the isolation of tissue-specific genes.