The cloning and characterization of human MyD88: a member of an IL-1 receptor related family

Murine MyD88, an RNA with homology both to the interleukin-1 receptor signaling domain and to `death-domains', is rapidly upregulated during differentiation of the myeloleukemic cell line M1. We have cloned the human homologue of murine MyD88 and re-evaluated the murine sequence. The open reading frame for both species encodes a 296 amino acid protein, which for murine MyD88 is 53 amino acids longer than originally published. Human MyD88 cDNA is encoded by 5 exons, and maps to chromosome 3p21.3-p22 by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH). Overexpression of the death domain region leads to transcriptional activation of the IL-8 promoter.