ELMO1

Engulfment and cell motility protein 1 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ELMO1 gene. ELMO1 is located on chromosome number seven in humans and is located on chromosome number thirteen in mice.

Structure

The human engulfment and cell motility protein 1, ELMO1, is 720 residues in length. The protein contains the following three domains:

ELMO1 also has a pro-rich motif at the extreme C terminus. Secondary structure analysis has predicted that there are alpha-helical regions at both the N and C-terminus.

The structure of the pleckstrin homology domain of ELMO1 has been determine by X-ray crystallography.

Function

The protein encoded by this gene 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.