JAK3: expression and mapping to chromosome 19p12-13.1

We cloned JAK3, the most recently described member of the JAK family of intracellular tyrosine kinases, from normal human CD34+ RNA. JAK3 is involved in the signal transduction pathways of the IL-2, IL-4, IL7, IL-9, and IL-15 receptors by association with their common gamma-chain (gamma[c]). JAK3 is critical to lymphoid development, as recently established by the linking of mutations in JAK3 to a subgroup of patients with SCID and the generation of JAK3-null mice with severe disruptions in normal lymphocytic development. However, JAK3 expression is not restricted to the lymphocytic compartment of bone marrow but is found in a wide range of tissues of both hematopoietic and non-hematopoietic origin. Northern blot analysis indicates that JAK3 is also expressed in adult placenta, lung, liver, kidney, pancreas, spleen, thymus, ovary, and small intestine. RNAse protection assays and RT-PCR indicate that JAK3 is expressed in a variety of leukemic-derived hematopoietic cell lines with myeloid and/or lymphoid phenotypes. In normal human bone marrow, JAK3 is expressed in the CD34+/lineage- fraction, which is highly enriched in hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells. In addition, we found a splice variant of JAK3 which is formed by the splicing of JAK3 with exon II of the leydig insulin-like (LEY I-L) hormone. RT-PCR and RNAse protection assay analyses indicate that this variant (termed I-JAK3) is normally expressed in almost all hematopoietic and non-hematopoietic tissues shown to express JAK3. Using fluorescence in situ hybridization we have localized JAK3 to 19p12-13.1, the same region of chromosome 19 to which the LEY I-L hormone maps (19p12-13.2).