Sperm Protein Associated With The Nucleus, X-Linked Family, Member N3 (SPANXN3)

By searching for SPANX-like genes in a region of chromosome X showing SPANX gene duplications, Kouprina et al. (2004) identified several SPANXN genes. SPANXN3 encodes a deduced 141-amino acid protein with a bipartite nuclear localization signal. RT-PCR analysis detected SPANXN3 in testis and in a melanoma cell line. Within the SPANXN3 peptide sequence, Westbrook et al. (2006) identified a PEST motif and regions rich in glutamic acid and serine.

Kouprina et al. (2004) determined that the SPANXN genes contain 2 exons and a highly conserved 650-bp intron that includes about 400 bp of an endogenous retrovirus long-terminal repeat (ERV-LTR).By genomic sequence analysis, Kouprina et al. (2004) mapped the SPANXN3 gene to a tandem SPANXN gene duplication region on chromosome Xq27.