MAGEA3 (melanoma antigen family A, 3)

In the year 1991 Van der Bruggen P et al. cloned and named MAGE-1 gene that encodes MZ2E antigen, which is expressed in melanoma tissues and cell lines (van der Bruggen et al., 1991).Since then based on sequence similarity MAGE family has expanded to more than 60 genes (Chomez et al., 2001).According to their chromosomal location and tissue-specific expression pattern, all the members of this family are categorized into two groups; type I (cancer and testis specific) and type II (ubiquitous) MAGE.MAGEA sub-family has 12 members starting from MAGEA1 to MAGEA12, among them MAGEA7 is a pseudo-gene (Doyle et al., 2010).The current review summarizes the information specifically on MAGEA3's DNA/RNA, protein structure, function and where the gene is implicated