Wingless Type MMTV Integration Site Family, Member 8B (WNT8B)

WNT8B is a member of the WNT gene family. It encodes a protein which shows 95%, 86% and 71% amino acid identity to the mouse, zebrafish and Xenopus Wnt8B proteins, respectively. The expression patterns of the human and mouse genes appear identical and are restricted to the developing brain. The chromosomal location of this gene to 10q24 suggests it as a candidate gene for partial epilepsy.The gene is expressed predominantly as a transcript of approximately 2.1 kb. The human and mouse expression patterns appeared to be identical and were restricted to the developing brain, with the great majority of expression being found in the developing forebrain. WNT8B gene contains 6 exons separated by small introns, with the exception of intron 1. The predicted protein has 351 amino acids.