Assignment of FUT8 to chicken chromosome band 5q1.4 and to human chromosome 14q23.2→q24.1 by in situ hybridization. Conserved and compared synteny between human and chicken

The human FUT8 gene is implicated in crucial developmental stages and is overexpressed in some tumors and other malignant diseases. Based on three different experiments we have assigned the FUT8 gene to chromosome bands 14q23.2→q24.1 and not 14q24.3 as previously shown (Yamaguchi et al., 1999). We found a high degree of identity between human and chicken FUT8 sequences. We mapped the chicken FUT8 gene to chromosome 5q1.4 in an internal rearrangement of a region of conserved synteny described between human 14q and chicken chromosome 5. Based on these findings we propose a new gene position correspondence between chicken and human comparative maps.