ADP Ribosylation Factor Like Protein 11 (ARL11)

The finding of hemizygous or homozygous deletions at chromosome 13q14.3 in a variety of neoplasms suggested the presence of a tumor suppressor locus telomeric to the RB1 gene. By database analysis to identify genes within this region, followed by RACE, Calin et al. (2005) obtained full-length bone marrow and spleen cDNAs encoding ARL11, which they called ARLTS1. The predicted 196-amino acid protein has a calculated molecular mass of 21 kD.ARL11 was downregulated by promoter methylation in 25% of the primary tumors analyzed. Transfection of wildtype ARL11 into A549 lung cancer cells suppressed tumor formation in immunodeficient mice and induced apoptosis, whereas transfection of the truncated protein had limited effect on apoptosis and tumor suppression.