RANBP2 Like And GRIP Domain Containing Protein 3 (RGPD3)

By searching databases for intrachromosomal duplications of genes in primates but not in other metazoans, Ciccarelli et al. (2005) identified 8 RGPD genes, including RGPD3, which they called RGP3. The RGPD genes resulted from duplications of a region of human chromosome 2 containing the RANBP2 and GCC2 genes. Like other RGPD proteins, the deduced RGPD3 protein exceeds 1,700 amino acids. Most of the sequence is homologous to regions of RANBP2, except for the C terminus, which includes the GRIP domain from GCC2. PCR analysis detected RGPD3 expression in testis and HeLa cell cDNA libraries.By genomic sequence analysis, Ciccarelli et al. (2005) mapped the 8 RGPD genes to chromosome 2p11.2-q13, and they named the genes according to their physical order. RGPD3 is the most centromeric of the 6 RGPD genes on chromosome 2q12.3-q13.