Ral Guanine Nucleotide Dissociation Stimulator Like Protein 2 (RGL2)

The Ras gene family of low molecular weight GTPases plays a central role in membrane trafficking and is regulated in part by guanine nucleotide dissociation stimulators (GDSs) such as RALGDS. Isomura et al. (1996) identified a fetal brain cDNA, designated RAB2L, that encodes a predicted 122-amino acid protein with 39.5% homology to the C-terminal (Ras-binding) region of RALGDS. However, since RAB2L has no apparent homology to the GDS-activity domain of RALGDS, its function is likely to be different from that of GDS proteins. By Northern blot analysis, RAB2L was expressed as a 900-bp transcript in all tissues examined; a 3.2-kb transcript was specifically expressed in heart and skeletal muscle.RGL2 gene contains 18 exons and spans about 7.3 kb.