Calpain 14 (CAPN14)

Calpains are a family of cytosolic calcium-activated cysteine proteases involved in a variety of cellular processes including apoptosis, cell division, modulation of integrin-cytoskeletal interactions, and synaptic plasticity. CAPN14 belongs to the calpain large subunit family.The deduced 663-amino acid protein has a predicted molecular mass of 76.7 kD and contains a putative cysteine protease domain as well as a calmodulin-like domain IV. CAPN13 shares 37.9% homology with and was most closely related to CAPN14. They could not detect expression of CAPN14, obtaining only negative results from Northern dot blot hybridization and RT-PCR analyses of 76 tissues examined.The CAPN13 and CAPN14 genes are transcriptionally oriented in the same direction, and the last predicted exon of CAPN13 lies approximately 447 kb upstream of the first predicted exon of CAPN14.