A novel cytoplasm protein, interphase cytoplasm foci protein 45 kDa (ICF45), was identified by screening the cDNA expression library for HeLa cells with serum from an autoimmune patient. The complete cDNA sequence of ICF45 was determined to be 1.32 kb and to encode 298 amino acids with an apparent molecular mass of 45 kDa. The ICF45 transcripts were detected in different tissues and were relatively rich in human liver and lung tissues but scarce in brain tissue. Immunofluorescence with anti-ICF45-specific antibodies demonstrated that ICF45 is strongly expressed in interphase and cannot be seen in mitosis. The subcellular localization of ICF45 and fusion proteins GFP-ICF45, ICF45-GFP, and HA-ICF45 showed ICF45 centralized into 1-2 dots in the cytoplasm and always near the nuclear membrane. The staining foci of ICF45 appeared to be slightly larger than centrosomes and in some cases were found to colocalize with centrosomes. After effectively silencing the ICF45 by RNAi, the growth and proliferation of the cells were significantly inhibited, and p53 was detected to be up-regulated. The silencing of ICF45 also resulted in an appearance of polycentrosome and multinuclear cells, which finally went to apoptosis. Our results suggest that ICF45 is a highly conserved novel protein, which is expressed in a cell cycle-dependent manner and seemed to be involved in cell cycle progression and cell proliferation.In the past a few decades, the autoantisera from patients with certain autoimmune diseases, such as systemic lupus erythematosus and scleroderma polymyositis, have been a valuable and important resource for finding new proteins, including some well known proteins (1-4). Centromere-associated proteins (5-8), RNA polymerase I (9), DNA topoisomerase I (10), and 70-kDa autoantigen of U1-small nuclear ribonuclease (11) are only a few examples. The development of some newer techniques, such as RACE, 1 GFP, and RNAi, has been dramatically speeding up the process of identifying new proteins and their function. Moreover, it is to be expected that some nontarget proteins might be caught during screening cDNA library with autoimmune patient sera, and some of these proteins could also be completely new and important. It was during our screening of HeLa cells from the cDNA expression library EXlox with the autoantiserum EJ, which recognizes mammalian centromeres (8, 12), when 11 positive clones were selected in the first round, and one of them was recognized as a centromere nonrelated protein with an apparent molecular mass of 45 kDa. What interested us the most about the protein is that the presence of this novel protein was highly cell cycle-dependent. It exists specifically in interphase cells and cannot be seen in mitosis. More interestingly, this protein was found to centralize into 1 or 2 sharp dots near the nuclear membrane at the cytoplasmic site. It was thus named ICF45 (Interphase Cytoplasmic Foci protein 45 kDa). In this study, we investigated the cellular dynamic distribution of ICF45 by using GFP fusion protein, and we ...