Molecular cloning of the cDNA of canine homeodomain-interacting protein kinase 2.

The research of p53 is being conducted to find the mechanisms of tumorigenesis and to treat various cancers. Homeodomain-interacting protein kinase2 (HIPK2) is an important factor to regulate p53 and to increase the stability of p53. Activation of HIPK2 leads to the selective phosphorylation of p53, resulting in growth arrest and the enhancement of apoptosis. In this study, the canine HIPK2 cDNA fragments were obtained, and their overlapping regions were aligned to give a total sequence of 3489 bp. The canine HIPK2 cDNA (GenBank accession number; AY800385) shares 93% and 90% sequence identity with those of human and mouse HIPK2, respectively. The canine HIPK2 cDNA contains an open reading frame encoding 1163 amino acid residues and the predicted amino acid sequence has 98% and 96% identity with those of human and mouse, respectively. The deduced amino acid sequence of canine HIPK2 has also all domains' sites compared with human and mouse HIPK2. Therefore, these structural similarities suggested that the canine HIPK2 shares the basic biological functions that HIPK2 exhibit in other species.