Narf

Narf or NARF may refer to:

Lady in the Water

Lady in the Water is a 2006 American fantasy thriller film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan and starring Paul Giamatti and Bryce Dallas Howard. The film's plot concerns a Philadelphia maintenance man who discovers a young woman in the swimming pool of his apartment complex. Gradually, he and his neighbors learn that she is a water nymph whose life is in danger from a vicious, wolf-like, mystical creature that tries to keep her from returning to her watery "blue world".

This is Shyamalan's first movie in which he has played a significant role as one of the supporting actors. The film received a somewhat polarized response from critics; most reviews were unfavorable, with criticism revolving around the film's lack of consistency and characterization. The film was also a financial disappointment grossing merely $72 million against a $70 million production budget, causing large losses.

Plot

One evening, Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamatti), who became a handyman at a Philadelphia apartment complex after his family was murdered, discovers Story (Bryce Dallas Howard), a naiad-like character (called a Narf) from the Blue World, in his building's pool, immediately rescuing her from an attack by a "Scrunt", a grass-covered lupine that lies preternaturally flat.

Nuclear prelamin A recognition factor

Nuclear prelamin A recognition factor, also known as NARF, is a protein which in humans is encoded by the NARF gene.

Function

Several proteins have been found to be prenylated and methylated at their carboxyl-terminal ends. Prenylation was initially believed to be important only for membrane attachment. However, another role for prenylation appears to be its importance in protein-protein interactions. The only nuclear proteins known to be prenylated in mammalian cells are prelamin A- and B-type lamins. Prelamin A is farnesylated and carboxymethylated on the cysteine residue of a carboxyl-terminal CaaX motif. This post-translationally modified cysteine residue is removed from prelamin A when it is endoproteolytically processed into mature lamin A. The protein encoded by this gene binds to the prenylated prelamin A carboxyl-terminal tail domain. It may be a component of a prelamin A endoprotease complex. The encoded protein is located in the nucleus, where it partially colocalizes with the nuclear lamina. It shares limited sequence similarity with iron-only bacterial hydrogenases. Alternatively spliced transcript variants encoding different isoforms have been identified for this gene, including one with a novel exon that is generated by RNA editing.