B-Cell Linker Protein (BLNK)

Fu et al. (1998) identified a novel B-cell linker protein, which they called BLNK. BLNK encodes a 456-amino acid polypeptide with basic, acidic, proline-rich, and SH2 domains. An alternatively spliced product called BLNK-S lacks basepairs 760 to 828 within the proline-rich domain.The murine Blnk protein shares 82% identity with human BLNK. There appeared to be no alternatively spliced form of mouse BLNK. BLNK shows greatest homology to the SLP76 (601603) linker protein. BLNK mRNA is predominantly expressed in the spleen, although some level of expression can be seen in liver, kidney, and pancreas. Expression of BLNK proteins was detected only in B-cell lines.