CMAS (gene) explained

N-acylneuraminate cytidylyltransferase is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the CMAS gene.^{[1] [2] [3]}

Function

The enzyme encoded by this gene catalyzes the activation of Neu5Ac to Cytidine 5-prime-monophosphate N-acetylneuraminic acid (CMP-Neu5Ac), which provides the substrate required for the addition of sialic acid. Sialic acids of cell surface glycoproteins and glycolipids play a pivotal role in the structure and function of animal tissues. The pattern of cell surface sialylation is highly regulated during embryonic development, and changes with stages of differentiation. Studies of a similar murine protein suggest that this protein localizes to the nucleus.^[3]

Further reading

• Maruyama K, Sugano S . Oligo-capping: a simple method to replace the cap structure of eukaryotic mRNAs with oligoribonucleotides . Gene . 138 . 1–2 . 171–4 . January 1994 . 8125298 . 10.1016/0378-1119(94)90802-8 .
• Bonaldo MF, Lennon G, Soares MB . Normalization and subtraction: two approaches to facilitate gene discovery . Genome Research . 6 . 9 . 791–806 . September 1996 . 8889548 . 10.1101/gr.6.9.791 . free .
• Suzuki Y, Yoshitomo-Nakagawa K, Maruyama K, Suyama A, Sugano S . Construction and characterization of a full length-enriched and a 5'-end-enriched cDNA library . Gene . 200 . 1–2 . 149–56 . October 1997 . 9373149 . 10.1016/S0378-1119(97)00411-3 .
• Münster AK, Eckhardt M, Potvin B, Mühlenhoff M, Stanley P, Gerardy-Schahn R . Mammalian cytidine 5'-monophosphate N-acetylneuraminic acid synthetase: a nuclear protein with evolutionarily conserved structural motifs . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America . 95 . 16 . 9140–5 . August 1998 . 9689047 . 21305 . 10.1073/pnas.95.16.9140 . free . 1998PNAS...95.9140M .
• Angata T, Varki NM, Varki A . A second uniquely human mutation affecting sialic acid biology . The Journal of Biological Chemistry . 276 . 43 . 40282–7 . October 2001 . 11546777 . 10.1074/jbc.M105926200 . free .
• Lawrence SM, Huddleston KA, Tomiya N, Nguyen N, Lee YC, Vann WF, Coleman TA, Betenbaugh MJ . Cloning and expression of human sialic acid pathway genes to generate CMP-sialic acids in insect cells . Glycoconjugate Journal . 18 . 3 . 205–13 . March 2001 . 11602804 . 10.1023/A:1012452705349 . 21504026 .
• Munster AK, Weinhold B, Gotza B, Muhlenhoff M, Frosch M, Gerardy-Schahn R . Nuclear localization signal of murine CMP-Neu5Ac synthetase includes residues required for both nuclear targeting and enzymatic activity . The Journal of Biological Chemistry . 277 . 22 . 19688–96 . May 2002 . 11893746 . 10.1074/jbc.M201093200 . free .
• Kutsenko AS, Gizatullin RZ, Al-Amin AN, Wang F, Kvasha SM, Podowski RM, Matushkin YG, Gyanchandani A, Muravenko OV, Levitsky VG, Kolchanov NA, Protopopov AI, Kashuba VI, Kisselev LL, Wasserman W, Wahlestedt C, Zabarovsky ER . NotI flanking sequences: a tool for gene discovery and verification of the human genome . Nucleic Acids Research . 30 . 14 . 3163–70 . July 2002 . 12136098 . 135748 . 10.1093/nar/gkf428 .

Notes and References

1. Hillier LD, Lennon G, Becker M, Bonaldo MF, Chiapelli B, Chissoe S, Dietrich N, DuBuque T, Favello A, Gish W, Hawkins M, Hultman M, Kucaba T, Lacy M, Le M, Le N, Mardis E, Moore B, Morris M, Parsons J, Prange C, Rifkin L, Rohlfing T, Schellenberg K, Bento Soares M, Tan F, Thierry-Meg J, Trevaskis E, Underwood K, Wohldman P, Waterston R, Wilson R, Marra M . Generation and analysis of 280,000 human expressed sequence tags . Genome Research . 6 . 9 . 807–28 . September 1996 . 8889549 . 10.1101/gr.6.9.807 . free .
2. Adams MD, Kerlavage AR, Fleischmann RD, Fuldner RA, Bult CJ, Lee NH, Kirkness EF, Weinstock KG, Gocayne JD, White O . Initial assessment of human gene diversity and expression patterns based upon 83 million nucleotides of cDNA sequence . Nature . 377 . 6547 Suppl . 3–174 . September 1995 . 7566098 . .
3. Web site: Entrez Gene: CMAS cytidine monophosphate N-acetylneuraminic acid synthetase.