MCM6

MCM6, or minichromosome maintenance deficient 6 gene is one of the highly conserved MCMs that are essential for the initiation of eukaryotic genome replication. The MCM complex consisting of this protein and MCM2, 4 and 7 possesses DNA helicase activity, and may act as a DNA unwinding enzyme.

Gene
The MCM6 gene, MCM6, is expressed at very high level. MCM6 contains 18 introns. There are 2 non overlapping alternative last exons. The transcripts appear to differ by truncation of the 3' end, presence or absence of 2 cassette exons, common exons with different boundaries.

MCM6 produces, by alternative splicing, 3 different transcripts, all with introns, putatively encoding 3 different protein isoforms.

MCM6 contains two of the regulatory reagons for LCT. They are located in two of the MCM6 intrones, approximately 14 kb (-13910) and 22 kb (-22018) upstream of LCT [1]. One of them, the (-13910) region, has been shown to function in vitro as a cis element capable of enhancing differential transcriptional activation of LCT promoter [2]. Mutations in these reagons are associated with lactose intolerance.