ELMO/CED-12 Domain Containing Protein 1 (ELMOD1)

The Arf family of 20 kDa GTPases act in cells as molecular switches to regulate essential cellular processes, including energy metabolism, cell division, membrane traffic, and the cytoskeleton. ELMOD1 and ELMOD2 are GAPs that have been shown to act on members of the Arf family, including Arfs and Arl2, though they lack the Arf GAP domain found in every other known ArfGAP.  When wild type ELMOD1 is over expressed in HeLa cells, there is an obvious phenotype of golgi fragmentation. It was found that the golgi morphology differed from the wild type cells in only one mutant construct. These studies have identified the "catalytic arginine" that is involved in GTP hydrolysis on Arf and Arl2 proteins and serves as the basis for future experiments designed to determine the signature motif for this new family of cell regulators.