Tubulin Folding Cofactor B (TBCB)

The cytoskeleton is composed of 3 structural elements: actin filaments, microtubules, and intermediate filaments. Cytoskeletal activity is modulated by many cytoskeleton-associated proteins (CAPs). One group of CAPs is characterized by a highly conserved glycine motif, the CAP-GLY domain, which may contribute to its association with microtubules. Members of the group of CAPs include dynactin, the dynein-associated protein. Watanabe et al. (1996) isolated a novel member of this family, which they called CKAPI (for cytoskeleton-associated protein I, glycine motif). The cDNA was isolated from a human fetal-brain cDNA library and found to contain an open reading frame of 579 nucleotides encoding a 193-amino acid polypeptide. Three transcripts of different sizes were expressed in all tissues examined.