The third member of the transforming acidic coiled coil-containing gene family, TACC3, maps in 4p16, close to translocation breakpoints in multiple myeloma, and is upregulated in various cancer cell lines.

We have recently identified a novel gene, TACC1 (transforming acidic coiled coil-containing gene 1), which is located close to FGFR1 within a region amplified in breast cancer on human chromosome 8p11. The coiled coil domain of this gene identified a series of cDNAs in the expressed sequence tag database, which suggested the existence of a family of TACC genes comprising at least three family members. We have now characterized the human and mouse TACC3 cDNAs, and demonstrate that this gene is upregulated in various cancer cell lines, and at Embryonic Day 15 in mice, suggesting that the TACC3 protein is involved in the control of cell growth and differentiation. The TACC3 gene maps telomeric to the FGFR3 gene in 4p16.3, close to a region disrupted by translocation breakpoints associated with multiple myeloma. Thus, TACC1, TACC2, and TACC3 map close to the corresponding FGFR1, FGFR2, and FGFR3 genes. The phylogenetic relationship among the three TACC genes is similar to that of the three FGFR family members. These relationships suggest that the FGFR and TACC genes arose from a physically linked ancestral gene pair. Subsequently, this gene pair has undergone two successive rounds of gene duplication to give rise to the three FGFR/TACC gene pairs on chromosomes 4, 8, and 10.