THE CHARACTERIZATION, EXPRESSION AND IN SILICO STUDIES ON THE SLC39A13 GENE; IT'S INVOLVEMENT IN BREAST CANCER

The zinc transporters superfamily is divided into four subfamilies, and SLC39A is one of the subfamilies. The SLC39A subfamily has 9 members. Based on our computer searchers, all 9 sequences each contain 8 transmembranes domains. Since it is related to the zinc transporters superfamily, the SLC39A subfamily may have the same function that is to transport zinc ion. This paper focus on SLC39A13 studies and using the recombinant technology with CHO cells, it is shown that the recombinant protein, pcDNA5/FRT/V5-His-TOPO®-SLC39A13, has 43kD molecular weight. A second study using immunofluorescence technique with MCF-7 cells, it is shown that the recombinant protein expresses intracellularly. Both studies demonstrate that SLC39A13 expresses in breast cancer cells line, therefore the gene has involvement in the development of breast cancer disease. In our computational studies which is divided into two; the homologous study and sequence analysis, both results are supporting our laboratory results. The homologous...