Human hematopoietic growth regulatory gene and uses

Patent Number: 6900017

HIWI is the human homologue of PIWI a gene found in fruitfly embryonic germline stem cells. HIWI is found in CD34 hematopoietic cells and appears to act as a negative regulator in that its transfection causes apoptosis in hematopoietic cell lines (Sharma AK, et al. Human CD34 stem cells express the hiwi gene, a human homologue of the Drosophila gene piwi. Blood. 2001 Jan 15;97(2):426-34).

The patent claims the hiwi gene, as well as using it for screening. The independent claims are:

A isolated nucleic acid comprising a nucleotide sequence encoding a human hiwi gene having a necleotide sequence that encodes the amino acid sequence identified by SEQ ID NO.2.


A method of screening a compound for modulating human hiwi gene activity in cells expressing the human hiwi gene product, the method comprising the steps of: (a) producing a transformed cell culture by transforming host cells with a recombinant expression construct gene according to claim 3, wherein the cells of the transformed cell culture express the human hiwi gene product; and (b) assaying the transformed cell culture with the compound to determine whether the compound modulates activity of the human hiwi gene product.

View this patent on the USPTO website.