Family With Sequence Similarity 9, Member A (FAM9A)

By characterizing a region of chromosome Xp22 involved in a translocation with chromosome 10, Martinez-Garay et al. (2002) cloned full-length FAM9A. The deduced 332-amino acid protein contains a stretch of multiple alanine and glutamic acids, 3 predicted bipartite nuclear localization signals, and 2 classical nuclear localization signals. FAM9A shares 46 to 59% amino acid identity with FAM9B and FAM9C, which also map to the same chromosomal region, and about 30% identity with rodent Sycp3. Northern blot analysis of several tissues detected expression of a 1.55-kb transcript only in testis. Fluorescence-tagged FAM9A localized to the nucleolus of transfected COS-7 cells.FAM9A gene contains 10 exons and spans about 10 kb. Exons 2 and 3 share 99% identity over the first 111 bp, suggesting that they were derived by duplication, and both contain a putative ATG start codon.