Melanoma Antigen Family A2 (MAGEA2)

MAGEA2 is a member of the MAGEA gene family.  The promoters and first exons of the MAGEA genes show considerable variability, suggesting that the existence of this gene family enables the same function to be expressed under different transcriptional controls. The MAGEA genes are clustered at chromosomal location Xq28. They have been implicated in some hereditary disorders, such as dyskeratosis congenita. This gene has two identical copies at different loci. Alternatively spliced transcript variants encoding the same protein have been identified for this gene.MAGE2 gene encodes a 314-amino acid protein that is 67% identical to the 309-amino acid MAGE1 protein. Both proteins lack a signal peptide and contain strictly identical stretches of 21 and 17 amino acids, which may be essential for their function.