ADP Ribosylation Factor Like Protein 9 (ARL9)

ARL9 is a member of the small GTPase protein family with a high degree of similarity to ARF proteins of the RAS superfamily.ARL9 contains a conserved interswitch toggle that places it evolutionarily close to the ARF family of GTPases. Louro et al. (2004) amplified ARL9 by PCR from a testis cDNA library. Use of an ATG codon as the translation initiation site encoded a putative truncated protein that only partially spanned the conserved Arf domain; use of a less frequent CTG alternative start codon extended the N-terminal portion of the predicted protein, generating a 187-amino acid polypeptide that covered the complete Arf/Ras domain. The ARL9 protein showed 62% sequence identity to a hypothetical protein, which Louro et al. (2004) designated ARL10.