Centaurin Alpha 1 (CENTa1)

By searching an EST database for sequences similar to rat centaurin-alpha, followed by PCR of a blood cDNA library, Venkateswarlu and Cullen cloned CENTA1. The deduced 373-amino acid protein has a calculated molecular mass of about 43 kD. It contains 2 pleckstrin homology (PH) domains and an ARF-GAP homology region. Northern blot analysis detected a 2.5-kb transcript expressed at a high level in brain and at a lower level in peripheral blood leukocytes. By Northern blot analysis, Hanck et al. found that expression of CENTA1, which they called p42-IP4, was high in brain, spinal cord, and peripheral blood, and weak in kidney. No expression was detected in other tissues examined. Fluorescent-labeled CENTA1 localized diffusely in cytosol and nucleus of transfected human embryonic kidney cells.