Tetratricopeptide Repeat Domain Protein 21A (TTC21A)

The tetratricopeptide repeat (TPR) is a structural motif. It consists in a degenerate 34 amino acid sequence identified in a wide variety of proteins. It is found in tandem arrays of 3–16 motifs, which form scaffolds to mediate protein–protein interactions and often the assembly of multiprotein complexes.

By database analysis to identify putative coding sequences in a region of chromosome 3 associated with carcinomas, Protopopov et al. (2003) identified TTC21A, which they called ST12. The deduced 1,320-amino acid protein contains 10 N-terminal tetratricopeptide repeats of about 34 amino acids each. Northern blot analysis detected strong expression of a 6.5-kb transcript only in testis.Protopopov et al. (2003) determined that the TTC21A gene contains 27 exons and spans about 27 kb.