HOMER1

Homer protein homolog 1 or Homer1 is a neuronal protein that in humans is encoded by the HOMER1 gene. Other names are Vesl and PSD-Zip45.

Structure

Homer1 protein has an N-terminal EVH1 domain, involved in protein interaction, and a C-terminal coiled-coil domain involved in self association. It consists of two major splice variants, short-form (Homer1a) and long-form (Homer1b and c). Homer1a has only EVH1 domain and is monomeric while Homer1b and 1c have both EVH1 and coiled-coil domains and are tetrameric. The coiled-coil can be further separated into N-terminal half and C-terminal half. The N-terminal half of the coiled-coil domain is predicted to be a parallel dimer while the C-terminus half is a hybrid of dimeric and anti-parallel tetrameric coiled-coil. As a whole, long Homer is predicted to have a dumbbell-like structure where two pairs of EVH1 domains are located on two sides of long (~50 nm) coiled-coil domain. Mammals have Homer2 and Homer3, in addition to Homer1, which have similar domain structure. They also have similar alternatively spliced forms.