The DNF15S2 locus at 3p21 is transcribed in normal lung and small cell lung cancer.

Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) has been associated with a deletion of the short arm of chromosome 3. One SCLC cell line, H748, has an interstitial deletion of chromosome 3p and shows allele loss for the DNF15S2 locus detected by the probe lambda H3. Conservation of DNF15S2 sequences in mouse indicated that this human genomic fragment may contain coding sequences. Screening of a normal lung cDNA library with chromosome 3-specific fragments of the lambda H3 probe resulted in the isolation of 18 positive clones. The cDNA clones detect an additional DNA polymorphism that is in linkage disequilibrium with the HindIII polymorphism of the DNF15S2 locus. Sequence analysis indicated that the DNF15S2 locus could potentially code for a previously unreported protein of 67 kDa which has 26 cysteine residues. DNF15S2 is part of the coding region of a 3.3-kb mRNA expressed in lung. Northern analysis indicated that this mRNA was not detectable in one of five SCLC lines. This SCLC line, H128, also lacks the enzyme aminoacylase 1.