HGNC Approved Gene Symbol: WDR3
Cytogenetic location: 1p12 Genomic coordinates (GRCh38) : 1:117,929,739-117,966,543 (from NCBI)
A conserved core of 4 or more modular repeat units defines a group of functionally diverse regulatory proteins in eukaryotes known as the WD repeat family. WD repeats are minimally conserved regions of approximately 40 amino acids typically bracketed by gly-his and trp-asp (GH-WD), which may facilitate formation of heterotrimeric or multiprotein complexes. Proteins belonging to the WD repeat family are involved in a variety of cellular processes, including cell cycle progression, signal transduction, apoptosis, and gene regulation (summary by Claudio et al., 1999).
Claudio et al. (1998) identified a human CD34+ hematopoietic progenitor line (KG-1a) EST with significant sequence similarity to a portion of the yeast TUP1 gene, which encodes a WD repeat-containing transcriptional regulator. Using the EST, they isolated the complete coding sequence of the human WDR3 protein. Claudio et al. (1999) found that the predicted 943-amino acid WDR3 protein contains 10 WD repeat modules. The first 4 WD repeats are separated from the remaining 6 WD repeats by a nuclear localization signal (NLS); a second NLS is located near the C-terminal end of the protein. WDR3 also contains a potential tyrosine kinase phosphorylation site and a cAMP- and cGMP-dependent protein kinase phosphorylation site. WDR3 shares 37% amino acid sequence identity with the S. cerevisiae WD repeat-containing protein DIP2. Northern blot analysis detected an approximately 4-kb WDR3 transcript in the majority of tissues examined, including brain, pancreas, skeletal muscle, and placenta. WDR3 expression was also found in all of the cell lines tested.
By FISH, Claudio et al. (1999) mapped the WDR3 gene to 1p13-p12.
Claudio, J. O., Liew, C.-C., Dempsey, A. A., Cukerman, E., Stewart, A. K., Na, E., Atkins, H. L., Iscove, N. N., Hawley, R. G. Identification of sequence-tagged transcripts differentially expressed within the human hematopoietic hierarchy. Genomics 50: 44-52, 1998. [PubMed: 9628821] [Full Text: https://doi.org/10.1006/geno.1998.5308]
Claudio, J. O., Liew, C.-C., Ma, J., Heng, H. H. Q., Stewart, A. K., Hawley, R. G. Cloning and expression analysis of a novel WD repeat gene, WDR3, mapping to 1p12-p13. Genomics 59: 85-89, 1999. [PubMed: 10395803] [Full Text: https://doi.org/10.1006/geno.1999.5858]