Identification and characterization of UEV3, a human cDNA with similarities to inactive E2 ubiquitin-conjugating enzymes

Recent studies have shown that ubiquitination is an essential factor in endosomal sorting and virus assembly. The human TSG101 gene has been demonstrated to belong to a group of genes coding for apparently inactive E2 ubiquitin-conjugating enzymes, which exert regulatory effects on E2 activity in cellular ubiquitination processes. In this study, a novel human cDNA (UEV3) encoding a putative protein of 379 amino acids was isolated from a human placenta library that may represent a partial paralogue of human TSG101. The predicted protein contains an N-terminal domain homologous to the catalytic domain of ubiquitin-conjugating enzymes (Ubc), which is fused to a sequence showing significant homology to members of the lactate dehydrogenase protein family. The UEV3 gene is located on chromosome 11 closely adjacent to TSG101 and LDH-C. Northern blot and UEV3-specific reverse transcription/polymerase chain reaction (RT/PCR) analyses of various colon carcinoma cell lines as well as both normal and tumor samples from colon revealed an expression of the UEV3 cDNA in all tested samples.