Molecular cloning, expression pattern, and chromosomal localization of human CDKN2D/INK4d, an inhibitor of cyclin D-dependent kinases.

Progression through the G1 phase of the cell cycle is dependent on the activity of holoenzymes formed between D-type cyclins and their catalytic partners, the cyclin-dependent kinases cdk4 and cdk6. p16INK4a, p15INK4b, and p18INK4c, a group of structurally related proteins, function as specific inhibitors of the cyclin D-dependent kinases and are likely to play physiologic roles as specific regulators of these kinases in vivo. A new member of the INK4 gene family, murine INK4d, has recently been identified. Here we report the isolation of human INK4d (gene symbol CDKN2D), which is 86% identical at the amino acid level to the murine clone and approximately 44% identical to each of the other human INK4 family members. The INK4d gene is ubiquitously expressed as a single 1.4-kb mRNA with the highest levels detected in thymus, spleen, peripheral blood leukocytes, fetal liver, brain, and testes. The abundance of INK4d mRNA oscillates in a cell-cycle-dependent manner with expression lowest at mid G1 and maximal during S phase. Using a P1-phage genomic clone of INK4d for fluorescence in situ hybridization analysis, the location of this gene was mapped to chromosome 19p13. No rearrangements or deletions of the INK4d gene were observed in Southern blot analysis of selected cases of pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) containing a variant (1;19)(q23;p13) translocation that lacks rearrangement of either E2A or PBX1, or in ALL cases containing homozygous or hemizygous deletions of the related genes, INK4a and INK4b.