Potassium Chloride Cotransporters 4 (KCC4)

By searching EST databases, Mount et al. (1999) identified a cDNA encoding SLC12A7, which they initially termed KCC3 but later renamed KCC4. The deduced 1,083-amino acid SLC12A7 protein contains 12 membrane-spanning segments, 8 phosphorylation sites, 7 of which are in the C terminus, and 4 potential N-glycosylation sites.SLC12A7 shares 65% amino acid identity with SLC12A4 and 66% identity with SLC12A6 . Northern blot analysis detected a 5.3-kb SLC12A7 transcript in most tissues tested, with highest expression in heart and kidney and little or no expression in adult brain. Functional analysis confirmed that SLC12A7 is a KCC.