Early Endosome Antigen 1 (EEA1)

EEA1 binds phospholipid vesicles containing phosphatidylinositol 3-phosphate, which is necessary for endosomal trafficking. It binds lipids through its FYVE domain and forms a homodimer through a coiled coil domain.Sequence analysis predicted that the 1,411-amino acid EEA1 protein is largely hydrophilic with short amphiphilic regions in the 15 N-terminal amino acids and in segments centered around amino acids 515 and 645. EEA1 contains an N-terminal zinc finger motif, a cys-rich C-terminal metal-binding finger, and multiple sites for N-glycosylation, phosphorylation, N-myristoylation, and for a leucine zipper structure. Immunofluorescence microscopy showed that EEA1 colocalizes with transferrin (TF) and with RAB5 (RAB5A), which localizes in early endosomes, but not with RAB7, which localizes in late endosomes.