Apolipoprotein B mRNA Editing Enzyme Catalytic Polypeptide 4 (APOBEC4)

APOBEC4 belongs to a subfamily of cytidine deaminases that catalyze deamination of cytidine to uridine during RNA editing.By searching databases using AID (AICDA) and APOBEC sequences as queries, Rogozin et al. (2005) identified APOBEC4. The deduced protein has a C-terminal deaminase domain containing a conserved zinc-coordinating motif. EST database analysis suggested that APOBEC4 is predominantly expressed in testis. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that APOBEC4 may be present only in mammals and birds.

Hartz (2006) mapped the APOBEC4 gene to chromosome 1q25.3 based on an alignment of the APOBEC4 sequence with the genomic sequence.