Prostaglandin E(2) (PGE(2)) plays an important role in protection of the gastric mucosa against various damaging agents and growth-inhibitory activity on tumor cells. However, the precise regulation mechanism of PGE(2) in gastric cancer cells is still unclear. In this study, we isolated a gene, which is regulated by PGE(2) in SNU-1, human gastric adenocarcinoma cells, using differential display RT-PCR (DD RT-PCR) and characterized the function of the gene induced by PGE(2). The full-length cDNA of the gene was cloned by the rapid amplification of cDNA ends method. The 1659 base pair cDNA consists of a 30-nt 5'-noncoding region, an 891-nt open reading frame and a 738-nt 3'noncoding region that includes a poly (A) signal. As a result of protein motif search, we found that it has a conserved thioredoxin-active site, Cys-Gly-Pro-Cys and a Myb-DNA binding domain repeat signature. Thus, we designated this gene product as thioredoxin-related protein-1, TRP-1. TRP-1 was expressed in a lower extent in renal, gastric and colon cancer tissues and is translated into 33 kDa protein in nuclear and cytoplasmic fractions. TRP-1 has a thioredoxin activity, which was detected using the insulin disulfide reduction assay. Another potential role of TRP-1 is repression of B-Myb activity through direct binding to B-Myb, a transcriptional factor induced at G1-S transition. Finally, TRP-1 overexpression inhibits mammalian cell proliferation and specifically predispose to G0/G1 phase arrest. In conclusion, these results imply that TRP-1 is a mammalian thioredoxin and plays as a transcriptional repressor through direct binding to the transcription factor B-Myb.