Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church

The Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARPC), as it exists today, is the remnant of a small denomination, which was formed from the Synod of the South, a division of the Associate Reformed Church. The original Associate Reformed Church resulted from a merger of the Associate Presbytery (from the Seceder tradition of the 18th century) and most of the Reformed Presbytery (from the Covenanter tradition of the 17th century) in Philadelphia in 1782. It is one of the oldest of the United States' theologically and socially conservative denominations.

History

After the Westminster Confession was signed by its drafters in 1643, the "Covenanters," a Presbyterian group, left the Church of Scotland for the New World to avoid signing an oath to the monarch. These early believers seceded from the Church of Scotland over doctrinal differences. Some ministers stayed in the Church of Scotland to work out their differences. By 1739, a Scottish Presbyterian pastor Ebenezer Erskine led a group of ministers to leave the Church of Scotland who formed a separate group, the Seceders, which again opposed the main group and had doctrinal differences. Ebenezer Erskine and his brother Ralph Erskine preached sermons that later became the inspiration for the Associate Reformed Church in the American colonies. The monarch moved some of Ebenezer Erskine's followers to the northern Irish province of Ulster to quell religious disputes among Catholics and Protestants. These Ulster Scots Seceders and the Catholics continued to battle and some of the Scots later emigrated to the American colonies with Seceder ministers from Scotland in the mid-1700s. They settled with the Covenanters in Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.

ARPC4

Actin-related protein 2/3 complex subunit 4 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ARPC4 gene.

Function

This gene encodes one of seven subunits of the human Arp2/3 protein complex. The Arp2/3 protein complex has been implicated in the control of actin polymerization in cells and has been conserved through evolution. The exact role of the protein encoded by this gene, the p20 subunit, has yet to be determined. Three transcript variants encoding two distinct isoforms have been found for this gene.

Model organisms

Model organisms have been used in the study of ARPC4 function. A conditional knockout mouse line, called Arpc4^{tm1a(EUCOMM)Wtsi} was generated as part of the International Knockout Mouse Consortium program — a high-throughput mutagenesis project to generate and distribute animal models of disease to interested scientists.

Male and female animals underwent a standardized phenotypic screen to determine the effects of deletion. Twenty six tests were carried out on mutant mice and two significant abnormalities were observed. No homozygous mutant embryos were identified during gestation, and therefore none survived until weaning. The remaining tests were carried out on heterozygous mutant adult mice; no additional significant abnormalities were observed in these animals.

ARPC3

Actin-related protein 2/3 complex subunit 3 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ARPC3 gene.

This gene encodes one of seven subunits of the Arp2/3 protein complex. The Arp2/3 protein complex has been implicated in the control of actin polymerization in cells and has been conserved through evolution. The exact role of the protein encoded by this gene, the p21 subunit, has yet to be determined.

References

Further reading

External links