Poly(A) polymerase gamma is an

enzyme Enzymes () are proteins that act as biological catalysts by accelerating chemical reactions. The molecules upon which enzymes may act are called substrates, and the enzyme converts the substrates into different molecules known as products. A ...

that in humans is encoded by the ''PAPOLG''

gene In biology, the word gene (from , ; "...Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a ba ...

. This gene encodes a member of the poly(A) polymerase family which catalyzes template-independent extension of the 3' end of a DNA/RNA strand. This enzyme shares 60% identity to the well characterized poly(A) polymerase II (PAPII) at the

amino acid Amino acids are organic compounds that contain both amino and carboxylic acid functional groups. Although hundreds of amino acids exist in nature, by far the most important are the alpha-amino acids, which comprise proteins. Only 22 alpha am ...

level. These two enzymes have similar organization of structural and functional domains. This enzyme is exclusively localized in the nucleus and exhibits both nonspecific and CPSF (

cleavage and polyadenylation specificity factor Cleavage and polyadenylation specificity factor (CPSF) is involved in the cleavage of the 3' signaling region from a newly synthesized pre-messenger RNA (pre-mRNA) molecule in the process of gene transcription. It is the first protein to bind to ...

)/AAUAAA-dependent

polyadenylation Polyadenylation is the addition of a poly(A) tail to an RNA transcript, typically a messenger RNA (mRNA). The poly(A) tail consists of multiple adenosine monophosphates; in other words, it is a stretch of RNA that has only adenine bases. In euk ...

activity. This gene is located on

chromosome 2 Chromosome 2 is one of the twenty-three pairs of chromosomes in humans. People normally have two copies of this chromosome. Chromosome 2 is the second-largest human chromosome, spanning more than 242 million base pairs and representing almost e ...

in contrast to the PAPII gene, which is located on

chromosome 14 Chromosome 14 is one of the 23 pairs of chromosomes in humans. People normally have two copies of this chromosome. Chromosome 14 spans about 107 million base pairs (the building material of DNA) and represents between 3 and 3.5% of the total DNA ...

References

Further reading