MTA2

Metastasis-associated protein MTA2 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the MTA2 gene.

MTA2 is the second member of the MTA family of genes. MTA2 protein localizes in the nucleus and is a component of the nucleosome remodeling and the deacetylation complex (NuRD). Similar to the founding family member MTA1, MTA2 functions as a chromatin remodeling factor and regulates gene expression. MTA2 is overexpressed in human cancer and its dysregulated level correlates well with cancer invasiveness and aggressive phenotypes.

Discovery

MTA2 was initially recognized as an MTA1 like 1 gene, named MTA1-L1, from a large scale sequencing of randomly selected clones from human cDNA libraries in 1999. Clues about the role of MTA2 in gene expression came from the association of MTA2 polypeptides in the NuRD complex in a proteomic study This was followed by targeted cloning of murine Mta2 in 2001.

Gene and spliced variants

MTA2 is localized on chromosome 11q12-q13.1 in human and on 19B in mice. The 8.6-kb long human MTA2 gene contains 20 exons and seven transcripts inclusive of three protein-coding transcripts but predicted to code for two polypeptides of 688 amino acids and 495 amino acids [8]. The remaining four MTA2 transcripts are non-coding RNA transcripts ranging from 532-bp to 627-bp. The murine Mta2 consists of a 3.1-kb protein-coding transcript to code a protein of 668 amino acids, and five non-coding RNAs transcripts, ranging from 620-bp to 839-bp.