RBM5, a regulator of alternative splicing of apoptotic genes, and its highly homologous RBM6 and RBM10 are RNA-binding proteins frequently deleted or mutated in lung cancer.
By RT-PCR we demonstrated the existence of two alternative splice variants of RBM6, one including and one excluding exon 5, in both normal lung tissue and lung cancer cell lines.
Analysis of the putative NY-LU-12 protein sequence predicted that it is a nuclear zinc finger protein with two RNA-binding domains, and Southern analysis showed that this gene is partially deleted in the lung cancer line NCI-H740 but not in nine other lung cancer lines.