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tetraspanin
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tetraspanin

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Also known as IPR000301, Transmembrane 4 superfamily, Tetraspanins

thumb|Hypothetical model of the tetraspanin function

Wikidata facts

Instance of
protein family
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Commons category
Tetraspanin
Sources (3)

via Wikidata · CC0

~3 min read

Encyclopedic overview

5 sections
Contents
  • List of human tetraspanins
  • See also
  • Relevance to parasite vaccines
  • References
  • External links

thumb|Hypothetical model of the tetraspanin function

Tetraspanins are a family of membrane proteins found in all multicellular eukaryotes also referred to as the transmembrane 4 superfamily (TM4SF) proteins. These proteins have four transmembrane alpha-helices and two extracellular domains, one short (called the small extracellular domain or loop, SED/SEL or EC1) and one longer, typically 100 amino acid residues (the large extracellular domain/loop, LED/LEL or EC2). Although several protein families have four transmembrane alpha-helices, tetraspanins are defined by conserved amino acid sequences including four or more cysteine residues in the EC2 domain, with two in a highly conserved 'CCG' motif. Tetraspanins are often thought to act as scaffolding proteins, anchoring multiple proteins to one area of the cell membrane.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “tetraspanin” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.