Correspondence
The PCNA pseudogenes in the human genome
1 Department of Genetics, Microbiology, and Toxicology, Stockholm University, S-10691 Stockholm, Sweden
2 Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Toxicology, Stockholm University, Svante Arrhenius väg 20C, S-10691 Stockholm, Sweden
BMC Research Notes 2012, 5:87 doi:10.1186/1756-0500-5-87
Published: 6 February 2012Abstract
Background
The proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) is a key protein in the eukaryotic DNA replication and cell proliferation. Following the cloning and characterisation of the human PCNA gene, the question of the existence of pseudogenes in the human genome was raised.
Findings
In this short communication we summarise the existing information about the PCNA pseudogenes and critically assess their status.
Conclusions
We propose the existence of at least four valid PCNA pseudogenes, PCNAP1, PCNAP2, LOC392454 and LOC390102. We would like to recommend assignment of a name for LOC392454 as "proliferating cell nuclear antigen pseudogene 3" (alias PCNAP3) and a name for LOC390102 as "proliferating cell nuclear antigen pseudogene 4" (alias PCNAP4). We prompt for more critical evaluation of the existence of a PCNA pseudogene, designated as PCNAP.
