Cyclic Nucleotide Gated Channel Alpha 2 (CNGa2)

Cyclic nucleotide-gated cation channels are essential in visual and olfactory signal transduction. Two of these proteins, CNG1 and CNG2, are encoded by 2 different genes.Biel et al. (1993) characterized the gene for the olfactory channel CNG2 and its protein product on the basis of the cDNA cloned from a rabbit aorta cDNA library. The cDNA encodes a polypeptide that is highly homologous to cloned olfactory channels, indicating that the channels expressed in olfactory epithelium and aorta are derived from the same primary transcript.In addition, a mutant cone CNG channel A subunit with its CLZ domain replaced by a generic trimeric leucine zipper produced channels that behaved much like the wildtype, but less so if replaced by a dimeric or tetrameric leucine zipper.