COX7A2L explained

Cytochrome c oxidase subunit 7A-related protein, mitochondrial is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the COX7A2L gene.^{[1] [2]}

The mitochondrially-encoded subunits function in electron transfer, and the nuclear-encoded subunits may function in the regulation and assembly of the complex.

This nuclear gene encodes a protein similar to polypeptides 1 and 2 of subunit VIIa in the C-terminal region, and also highly similar to the mouse Sig81 protein sequence.

This gene is expressed in all tissues, and upregulated in a breast cancer cell line after estrogen treatment. It is possible that this gene represents a regulatory subunit of COX and mediates the higher level of energy production in target cells by estrogen.

Further reading

• Segade F, Hurlé B, Claudio E . Identification of an additional member of the cytochrome c oxidase subunit VIIa family of proteins. . J. Biol. Chem. . 271 . 21 . 12343–9 . 1996 . 8647836 . 10.1074/jbc.271.21.12343 . etal. free .
• Schmidt TR, Goodman M, Grossman LI . Molecular evolution of the COX7A gene family in primates. . Mol. Biol. Evol. . 16 . 5 . 619–26 . 1999 . 10335655 . 10.1093/oxfordjournals.molbev.a026144. free .
• Lee N, Daly MJ, Delmonte T . A genomewide linkage-disequilibrium scan localizes the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean cytochrome oxidase deficiency to 2p16. . Am. J. Hum. Genet. . 68 . 2 . 397–409 . 2001 . 11156535 . 10.1086/318197 . 1235273 . etal.
• Strausberg RL, Feingold EA, Grouse LH . Generation and initial analysis of more than 15,000 full-length human and mouse cDNA sequences. . Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. . 99 . 26 . 16899–903 . 2003 . 12477932 . 10.1073/pnas.242603899 . 139241 . 2002PNAS...9916899M . etal. free .
• Schmidt TR, Doan JW, Goodman M, Grossman LI . Retention of a duplicate gene through changes in subcellular targeting: an electron transport protein homologue localizes to the golgi. . J. Mol. Evol. . 57 . 2 . 222–8 . 2004 . 14562965 . 10.1007/s00239-003-2468-8 . 25021067 .
• Ota T, Suzuki Y, Nishikawa T . Complete sequencing and characterization of 21,243 full-length human cDNAs. . Nat. Genet. . 36 . 1 . 40–5 . 2004 . 14702039 . 10.1038/ng1285 . etal. free .
• Gerhard DS, Wagner L, Feingold EA . The status, quality, and expansion of the NIH full-length cDNA project: the Mammalian Gene Collection (MGC). . Genome Res. . 14 . 10B . 2121–7 . 2004 . 15489334 . 10.1101/gr.2596504 . 528928 . etal.
• Rual JF, Venkatesan K, Hao T . Towards a proteome-scale map of the human protein-protein interaction network. . Nature . 437 . 7062 . 1173–8 . 2005 . 16189514 . 10.1038/nature04209 . 2005Natur.437.1173R . 4427026 . etal.

Notes and References

1. Watanabe T, Inoue S, Hiroi H, Orimo A, Kawashima H, Muramatsu M . Isolation of estrogen-responsive genes with a CpG island library . Mol Cell Biol . 18 . 1 . 442–9 . Jan 1998 . 9418891 . 121513 . 10.1128/mcb.18.1.442.
2. Web site: Entrez Gene: COX7A2L cytochrome c oxidase subunit VIIa polypeptide 2 like.