Significance of MTG8 in leukemogenesis

MTG8 is a counterpart gene of AML1 in acute myeloid leukemia with t(8:21) translocation. Most of the coding region of the MTG8 is fused with AML1 runt domain. In normal tissues, the MTG8 is highly expressed in brain, but not in hematopoietic tissues. MTG8 may be important in leukemogenesis as well as in AML1 truncation. The function of MTG8 is assumed to be as a transcription factor, because it possesses several features common to transcription factors; putative zinc finger motifs, serine/threonine/proline-rich sequences and a region similar to TAF110. In this paper, we report on the protein properties of the MTG8.