Bestrophin 1 (BEST1)

BEST1 belongs to the bestrophin family of anion channels, which includes BEST2, BEST3, and BEST4. Bestrophins are transmembrane (TM) proteins that share a homology region containing a high content of aromatic residues, including an invariant arg-phe-pro (RFP) motif. Bestrophins are believed to function as chloride channels.

The bestrophin genes share a conserved gene structure, with almost identical sizes of the 8 RFP-TM domain-encoding exons and highly conserved exon-intron boundaries. Each of the 4 bestrophin genes has a unique 3-prime end of variable length.BEST1 has been shown by two independent studies to be regulated by Microphthalmia-associated transcription factor.