Engulfment And Cell Motility 1 (ELMO1)

Engulfment and cell motility protein 1 is interacts with the dedicator of cyto-kinesis 1 protein to promote phagocytosis and effect cell shape changes. Similarity to a C. elegans protein suggests that this protein may function in apoptosis and in cell migration. Alternative splicing of this gene results in multiple transcript variants encoding different isoforms. In mammalian cells, ELMO1 functionally cooperated with CRKII and DOCK180 to promote phagocytosis and cell shape changes. Ced12/ELMO1 bound directly to Ced5/DOCK180. This evolutionarily conserved complex stimulated a Rac-GEF, leading to RAC1 activation and cytoskeletal rearrangements. These studies identified Ced12/ELMO as an upstream regulator of RAC1 that affects engulfment and cell migration from C. elegans to mammals.