B-Melanoma Antigen 2 (BAGE2)

TPTE and BAGE2 located on 21p11 and SAMSN1 on 21q11. A first BAGE (B melanoma antigen) gene, BAGE1, was identified because it encodes a human tumour antigen recognised by a cytolytic T lymphocyte. Genes and gene fragments share extensive regions of 90-99% nucleotide identity.

Similar to BAGE1, the new BAGE genes are expressed in melanomas, bladder and lung carcinomas and in a few tumours of other histological types. All the normal tissues were negative, with the exception of testis. human juxtacentromeric regions harbour genes, which are transcribed and translated, in addition to gene fragments that are generally not expressed. the pattern of expression restricted to cancer/testis is a feature of the few genes mapping to juxtacentromeric regions.