Note that this locus is complex: it appears to produce several proteins with no sequence overlap.
Expression: According to AceView, this gene is well expressed, 0.9 times the average gene in this release. The sequence of this gene is defined by 104 GenBank accessions from 95 cDNA clones, some from placenta (seen 28 times), testis (12), placenta normal (8), pooled human melanocyte, fetal heart, andpregnant uterus (6), uterus (6), human placenta (3), liver and spleen (3) and 13 other tissues. We annotate structural defects or features in 5 cDNA clones.
Alternative mRNA variants and regulation: The gene contains 29 distinct introns (28 gt-ag, 1 gc-ag). Transcription produces 14 different mRNAs, 11 alternatively spliced variants and 3 unspliced forms. There are 4 probable alternative promotors, 5 non overlapping alternative last exons and 11 validated alternative polyadenylation sites (see the diagram). The mRNAs appear to differ by truncation of the 5' end, truncation of the 3' end, presence or absence of 4 cassette exons, overlapping exons with different boundaries.
4 variants were isolated in vivo, despite the fact that they are predicted targets of nonsense mediated mRNA decay (NMD).
Efficacy of translation may be reduced by the presence of a shorter translated product (uORF) initiating at an AUG upstream of the main open reading frame (in variant aAug10).
Function: There are 6 articles specifically referring to this gene in PubMed. Functionally, the gene has been proposed to participate in a process (proteolysis). Proteins are expected to have molecular functions (metal ion binding, metallopeptidase activity, zinc ion binding) and to localize in various compartments (cytoplasm, extracellular space, integral to membrane).
Protein coding potential: 10 spliced and the unspliced mRNAs putatively encode good proteins, altogether 10 different isoforms (6 complete, 4 COOH complete), some containing Peptidase family M1 domain [Pfam]; 3 of the 6 complete proteins appear to be secreted. The remaining 3 mRNA variants (1 spliced, 2 unspliced) appear not to encode good proteins. Finally proteins from this gene may be modulated by acetylation; phosphorylation; ubiquitination, as detailed at PhosphoSite.

Please quote: AceView: a comprehensive cDNA-supported gene and transcripts annotation, Genome Biology 2006, 7(Suppl 1):S12

Alternative mRNAs are shown aligned from 5' to 3' on a virtual genome where introns have been shrunk to a minimal length. Exon size is proportional to length, intron height reflects the number of cDNAs supporting each intron, the small numbers show the support of the introns in deep sequencing (with details in mouse-over) . Introns of the same color are identical, of different colors are different. 'Good proteins' are pink, partial or not-good proteins are yellow, uORFs are green. 5' cap or3' poly A flags show completeness of the transcript.
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