Short sequence-paper Conserved domains and lack of evidence for polyglutamine length polymorphism in the chicken homolog of the Machado-Joseph disease gene product ataxin-3 1

Ataxin-3 is a protein of unknown function which is mutated in Machado-Joseph disease by expansion of a genetically unstable CAG repeat encoding polyglutamine. By analysis of chicken ataxin-3 we were able to identify four conserved domains of the protein and detected widespread expression in chicken tissues. In the first such analysis in a non-primate species we found that in contrast to primates, the chicken CAG repeat is short and genetically stable. fl 1999 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.