DEK Oncogene (DEK)

DEK Oncogene binds to cruciform and superhelical DNA and induces positive supercoils into closed circular DNA and is also involved in splice site selection during mRNA processing. Chromosomal aberrations involving this region, increased expression of this gene and the presence of antibodies against this protein are all associated with various diseases.The breakpoints on chromosome 6 and those on chromosome 9 are clustered in a specific intron of the DEK and CAN (NUP214) genes, respectively; hence, the DEK/CAN fusion gene encodes an invariable transcript. The 5-prime part of the DEK gene is fused to the 3-prime part of the CAN gene with no interruption of open reading frame. The authors stated that comparisons with DNA databases showed no consistent homology with known proteins at that time.