Patent ID: 6902898

Claim:
A method for detecting a cancer selected from the group consisting of colorectal cancer and malignant melanoma, wherein the method comprises the steps of: bringing a specimen from a pathologic tissue of a patient into contact with a DNA coding for the protein of amino acid sequence 1-208 of SEQ ID NO:2, a DNA fragment thereof with at least 15 nucleotides, or a complement thereof; detecting the presence of a nucleic acid encoding said bradeion protein in said specimen; and determining whether there exists said cancer in said patient by using the presence of said nucleic acid as an indication, wherein the amino acid sequence 1-208 of SEQ ID NO:2 has the following properties: (i) it is a transmembranous protein; (ii) it has a transmembranous portion, an extracellular portion, and a cytoplasmic portion in its molecule as determined by a hydrophobicity analysis according to Kyte-Doolittle method; (iii) it is expressed in the human adult normal brain and heart, the expression level thereof in the heart being about 10% or lower of that in the brain, while it is not expressed in other adult normal organs of spleen, lung, liver, skeletal muscle, kidney and pancreas, and in fetal brain, lung, heart and kidney; (iv) it induces programmed cell death when overexpressed in a cultured human brain-derived undifferentiated nerve cell line; (v) it induces termination of cell division and aging when overexpressed in a cultured human brain-derived differentiated nerve cell; (vi) it is located in cytoplasm in the course of the induced cell death, and forms an intracellular aggregate when overexpressed; and (vii) it is expressed in a human colorectal cancer cell line or in a human malignant melanoma cell line, but not in leukemia, lymphoma and lung carcinoma, and which is encoded by the DNA contained in a deposited plasmid, the accession number FERM BP-6922.