Kohl N E, Legouy E, DePinho R A, Nisen P D, Smith R K, Gee C E, Alt F W
Nature. 1986;319(6048):73-7. doi: 10.1038/319073a0.
N-myc, a cellular gene related to the c-myc proto-oncogene, was originally identified on the basis of its very frequent amplification and overexpression in a restricted set of tumours, most notably human neuroblastomas. That N-myc may have a causal role in the genesis of these tumours is suggested by the observation that in the rat embryo fibroblast co-transformation assay it has a transforming potential similar to that of c-myc. The apparent structural and functional homology of N-myc and c-myc suggests that they may be members of the same protooncogene family. However, despite these apparent similarities, expression of the two genes appears to be dramatically different with respect to tumour specificity, as well as tissue and developmental stage specificity. To further elucidate the common and unique aspects of N-myc and c-myc gene structure and function in normal and transformed cells, we have determined the organization of human N-myc and the nucleotide sequence of its messenger product, and we report here that N-myc and c-myc have a similar intron/exon structure and that their protein products share regions of significant homology.
N-myc是一种与c-myc原癌基因相关的细胞基因，最初是基于其在一组特定肿瘤（最显著的是人类神经母细胞瘤）中非常频繁的扩增和过表达而被鉴定出来的。在大鼠胚胎成纤维细胞共转化试验中，N-myc具有与c-myc相似的转化潜力，这一观察结果表明N-myc可能在这些肿瘤的发生中起因果作用。N-myc和c-myc明显的结构和功能同源性表明它们可能是同一原癌基因家族的成员。然而，尽管有这些明显的相似之处，但这两个基因在肿瘤特异性以及组织和发育阶段特异性方面的表达似乎有很大差异。为了进一步阐明N-myc和c-myc基因在正常细胞和转化细胞中的结构和功能的共同和独特方面，我们确定了人类N-myc的结构组织及其信使产物的核苷酸序列，并且我们在此报告N-myc和c-myc具有相似的内含子/外显子结构，并且它们的蛋白质产物具有显著同源的区域。
