Calreticulin is a highly conserved chaperone protein which resides primarily in the endoplasmic reticulum, and is involved in a variety of cellular processes, among them, cell adhesion. Additionally, it functions in protein folding quality control and calcium homeostasis. Calreticulin is also found in the nucleus, suggesting that it may have a role in transcription regulation. Systemic lupus erythematosus is associated with increased autoantibody titers against calreticulin. Recurrent mutatio

High Mobility Group Box-1 (HMGB1) is a cytokine implicated in the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and other inflammatory diseases. The cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway, a vagus nerve dependent mechanism, inhibits HMGB1 release in experimental disease models

Collagens are highly conserved throughout evolution and are characterised by an uninterrupted “Glycine X Y“ triplet repeat that is a necessary part of the triple helical structure. Type I collagen (95 kDa) is found in bone, cornea, skin and tendon. Mutations in the encoding gene are associated with osteogenesis imperfecta, Ehlers Danlos syndrome, and idiopathic osteoporosis. Reciprocal translocations between chromosomes 17 and 22, where this gene and the gene for Platelet-derived growth

The protein encoded by this gene is a type II transmembrane glycoprotein and a common acute lymphocytic leukemia antigen that is an important cell surface marker in the diagnosis of human acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL). The encoded protein is present on leukemic cells of pre-B phenotype, which represent 85% of cases of ALL. This protein is not restricted to leukemic cells, however, and is found on a variety of normal tissues. The protein is a neutral endopeptidase that cleaves peptides at t

Profound changes in patterns of gene expression can result from relatively small changes in the concentrations of sequence specific transcription factors. Ubiquitin (see MIM 191339)-dependent proteolysis is a complex pathway of protein metabolism implicated in such diverse cellular functions as maintenance of chromatin structure, receptor function, and degradation of abnormal proteins. A late step of the process involves disassembly of the polyubiquitin chains on degraded proteins into ubiquit

Proteases are enzymes that are involved in protein catabolism by hydrolyzing the peptide bonds between amino acids in a polypeptide chain. MPND (MPN domain-containing protein) is a 471 amino acid protein that is thought to be a protease. Expressed as two isoforms produced by alternative splicing, MPND contains a JAMM motif and one MPN domain. The gene that encodes MPND maps to human chromosome 19, which consists of around 63 million bases with over 1,400 genes, making up over 2% of human genom