Tubby Homolog (TUB)

TUB play a role in obesity and sensorineural degradation. The crystal structure has been determined for a similar protein in mouse, and it functions as a membrane-bound transcription regulator that translocates to the nucleus in response to phosphoinositide hydrolysis. The candidate gene in tubby mice differed consistently from that in normal mice with respect to transcript size. Sequence analysis of the candidate gene revealed a G-to-T transversion that abolished the donor splice site in the 3-prime coding region, leading to a larger transcript in tubby. The transcript was 6.6 kb in tubby versus 6.3 kb in B6 mice. Sequence analysis of the candidate gene revealed that the 200 amino acids at the C terminus show 62% identity to a mouse phosphodiesterase.