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Volume 17, Number 4, Issue of February 15, 1997 pp. 1406-1415
Copyright ©1997 Society for Neuroscience

A Post-Transcriptional Regulatory Mechanism Restricts Expression of the Paraneoplastic Cerebellar Degeneration Antigen cdr2 to Immune Privileged Tissues

Received Aug. 23, 1996; revised Nov. 11, 1996; accepted Dec. 4, 1996.

John P. Corradi¹, Chingwen Yang¹, Jennifer C. Darnell¹, Josep Dalmau², and Robert B. Darnell^{1, 2}

¹ Laboratory of Molecular Neuro-Oncology, The Rockefeller University, New York, New York 10021, and ² Department of Neurology and the Cotzias Laboratory of Neuro-Oncology, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York 10021

Paraneoplastic cerebellar degeneration (PCD) is believed to be an autoimmune disorder initiated by the ectopic expression of a neuron-specific protein in breast and ovarian tumors. PCD antisera was used previously to identify several cerebellar degeneration-related (cdr) genes encoding putative PCD antigens. We have found that the cdr2 gene, which encodes a cytoplasmic leucine zipper protein of unknown function, is expressed in PCD-associated tumors, whereas other cdr genes are not; thus, cdr2 encodes the PCD tumor antigen. To determine whether the expression pattern of cdr2 is consistent with its proposed role in PCD, we have isolated the mouse homolog and examined both the mRNA and protein distribution in adult tissues. We have found that cdr2 mRNA is expressed in almost all tissues, whereas the protein is expressed only in the brain and testis. Within the brain, both the cdr2 mRNA and immunoreactivity are confined primarily to neurons in the cerebellum and brainstem, the regions most affected in PCD. These results suggest first that the tissue-specific expression of cdr2 is regulated at a post-transcriptional level. Moreover, because the brain and testis are considered to be immune-privileged sites, the expression pattern of cdr2 is compatible with the autoimmune model of PCD pathogenesis.

Key words: paraneoplastic neurological disease; neuron-specific gene expression; translational regulation; immune privilege; cerebellar degeneration; leucine zipper protein

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