Chloride Channel Protein 3 (CLCN3)

The CLCN3 gene was found to be expressed primarily in tissues derived from neuroectoderm. Within the brain Clcn3 expression was particularly evident in the hippocampus, olfactory cortex, and olfactory bulb. CLCN3 encodes a 760-amino acid protein that differs by only 2 amino acid residues from the protein encoded by Clcn3.CLCN3 protein also shows a high similarity with GEF1, an integral membrane protein of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae known to be involved in respiration and iron-limited cell growth, and with the predicted protein product of a DNA sequence from the mold Septoria nodorum. The high degree of sequence conservation in distantly related species indicates that the gene has retained a fundamental function throughout evolution.