Coiled Coil Domain Containing Protein 136 (CCDC136)

Using a positional cloning strategy, Jiang et al. (2000) identified CCDC136, which they called NAG6, as a potential tumor suppressor gene within the common deleted region on 7q32 associated with nasopharyngeal carcinoma . Zhang et al. (2004) stated that the predicted NAG6 protein contains 4 protein kinase C (PKC) phosphorylation sites. NAG6 expression was downregulated in nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells compared to normal nasopharyngeal There was no association between NAG6 expression level and lymph node and/or distance metastasis. These results were confirmed by dot-blot analysis. RFLP analysis, performed in 7 gastric cancer cases, indicated that loss of genetic material might be responsible for the downregulation of the NAG6 gene.