Disease relevance of WTAP

• Exclusion of WTAP and HOXA13 as candidate genes for isolated hypospadias [1].
• Moreover, mutations in the Wilms' tumor suppressor gene WT1 have been found in patients with hypospadias without evidence of a Wilms' tumor and, therefore, its recently identified associated protein (WTAP) may be a further candidate gene for the genesis of hypospadias [1].

High impact information on WTAP

• Collectively, these findings establish WTAP as an essential factor for the stabilization of cyclin A2 mRNA, thereby regulating G(2)/M cell-cycle transition [2].
• Wilms' tumor 1-associating protein (WTAP) has been reported to be a ubiquitously expressed nuclear protein [2].
• To investigate the role of WTAP, we generated WTAP-knockout mice and performed small interfering RNA (siRNA)-mediated knockdown analyses in primary cultured cells [2].
• We report the identification of a novel human WT1-associating protein, WTAP, which was isolated using the yeast two-hybrid system [3].
• On the other hand, the cells expressing mutant (MT) APP or coexpressing WTAPP and MTPS1/2 produced a greater proportion of AICD-(49-99) than AICD-(50-99) [4].

Biological context of WTAP

• Introduction of WTAP complementary DNA into human SMCs inhibited their proliferation, with a corresponding decrease in DNA synthesis and an increase in apoptosis [5].
• These findings identify WTAP as a novel regulator of the cell cycle and cell survival and implicate a WTAP-WT1 axis as a novel pathway for controlling vascular SMC phenotype [5].

Physical interactions of WTAP

• Interestingly, this gene encodes a protein (WTAP) that was previously found to interact with the Wilms' tumor suppressor-1 (WT1), an isoform of which binds to and co-localizes with splicing factors [6].

References