Structures and chromosome locations of the human MEF2A gene and a pseudogene MEF2AP.

The MEF2 family of transcription factors control the expression of muscle-specific and mitogen-induced genes. Here we describe the isolation and structure of the human MEF2A gene. The protein coding region of MEF2A is divided by 10 introns. The 3' untranslated region (UTR) is 3.7 kb in length, and it contains a region that is highly homologous with a portion of the 3' UTR of Xenopus MEF2A. A partially processed pseudogene (MEF2AP) corresponding to MEF2A was also isolated and characterized. Human MEF2A was mapped by fluorescence in situ hybridization to chromosome 15q26, and MEF2AP was mapped to chromosome 1q24 --> q25.