Species Human Entrez 285343 | Human Mouse Ensembl ENSG00000179152 | |
Aliases TCAIM, C3orf23, TOAG-1, TOAG1, T-cell activation inhibitor, mitochondrial External IDs MGI: 1196217 HomoloGene: 45481 GeneCards: TCAIM | ||
Uncharacterized protein C3orf23 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the C3orf23 gene. Also known as TCAIM (T-cell activation inhibitor, mitochondrial).
Contents
Gene
The gene is located on chromosome 3, at position 3p21.31, and is 71,333 bases long. A graphic of the image is show below in Fig.1.2 The TCAIM protein is 496 residues long and weighs 57925 Da. It exists in four different isoforms. TCAIM is highly conserved among different species of organism, but no homologies to protein families of known functions were discovered.
Homologs
An alignment of Homo sapiens TCAIM and Danio rerio (Zebrafish) homologs was performed using the SDSC workbench. There is approximately 55% identity between the two orthologs, with a global alignment score of 1817. The two orthologs are consistently similar throughout the entirety of their sequences. The differences between the two genes is due seemingly random segments of non-conserved and semiconserved residues scattered throughout the two alignments. This difference may be due to the non-relatedness between the two organisms.
Evolutionary History
TCAIM diverged much quicker than cytochrome C, but slightly slower than fibrinogen.
Function
Not much is known about the function; it is surmised that this protein may play a role in T-cell apoptosis. TCAIM may play a role in the innate immune signaling via the mitochondria.
Clinical Significance
A research study performed by Vogel et al. They previously found that TCAIM is highly expressed in grafts and tissues of tolerance-developing transplant patients and that the protein is localized in the mitochondria. In this study, they found that TCAIM interacts with and is regulated by CD11c(+) dendritic cells. Another article by Hendrikson et. el briefly mentions TCAIM. They found that Genetic variants in nuclear-encoded mitochondrial genes influence AIDS progression. The third article is another research that finds evidence that TCAIM (along with mitochondrial genes could be used as a marker in patients to predict whether they could accept an allograft or reject it.