Identification of a novel splice variant of the human anti-apoptopsis gene survivin.

Survivin, a new member of the inhibitor of apoptosis protein (IAP) family, has been reported to be expressed in many cancers but not in differentiated normal tissues. In the present study, we describe the identification of a novel alternatively spliced survivin transcript, designated as survivin-3B. It comprises 5 exons including novel exon 3B derived from a 165-bp long portion of intron 3. Acquisition of a new in-frame TGA stop codon within the novel exon 3B results in an open reading frame (ORF) of 363 nucleotides, predicting a truncated 120 amino acid protein. Expression of survivin-3B was detected in human colon and gastric adenocarcinoma cell lines as well as mononuclear cells prepared from patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and acute myelogenous leukemia (AML). Survivin-3B contains a single baculovirus IAP repeat (BIR), which is critical for apoptosis inhibition. However, it lacks a carboxyl-terminal coiled-coil domain, suggesting that survivin-3B may not be associated with G2/M phase. These data indicate that the function of survivin-3B may be different from that of regular survivin.