Mucin 4 (MUC4) gene: regional assignment (3q29) and RFLP analysis.

The use of a probe (JER64) containing a mucin 4 (MUC4) cDNA insert of 1.83 kb allowed to assign by in situ hybridization, the MUC4 gene to 3q29. This probe detected RFLPs with all restriction enzymes used (BamHI, HindIII, PstI, EcoRI, and TaqI). Particularly numerous alleles were observed with PstI, EcoRI and TaqI, in a small sample of unrelated DNAs (25 digested with PstI, 8 with EcoRI and 8 with TaqI). The PIC values were 0.69, 0.63 and 0.70 for PstI, EcoRI and TaqI respectively. The polymorphisms observed of variable number of tandem repeat (VNTR) type are in relation with the presence of tandemly repeated nucleotide sequences in MUC4 gene.