A Functional Study of Mutations in K+-dependent Na+-Ca2+ Exchangers Associated with Amelogenesis Imperfecta and Non-syndromic Oculocutaneous Albinism
Bibliographic record
Abstract
K(+)-dependent Na(+)/Ca(2+) exchangers belong to the solute carrier 24 (SLC24A1-5) gene family of membrane transporters. Five different gene products (NCKX1-5) have been identified in humans, which play key roles in biological processes including vision, olfaction, and skin pigmentation. NCKXs are bi-directional membrane transporters that transport 1 Ca(2+)+K(+) ions in exchange for 4 Na(+) ions. Recent studies have linked mutations in the SLC24A4 (NCKX4) and SLC24A5 (NCKX5) genes to amylogenesis imperfecta (AI) and non-syndromic oculocutaneous albinism (OCA6), respectively. Here, we introduced mutations found in patients with AI and OCA6 into human SLC24A4 (NCKX4) cDNA leading to single residue substitutions in the mutant NCKX4 proteins. We measured NCKX-mediated Ca(2+) transport activity of WT and mutant NCKX4 proteins expressed in HEK293 cells. Three mutant NCKX4 cDNAs represent mutations found in the SCL24A4 gene and three represent mutations found in the SCL24A5 gene involving residues conserved between NCKX4 and NCKX5. Five mutant proteins had no observable NCKX activity, whereas one mutation resulted in a 78% reduction in transport activity. Total protein expression and trafficking to the plasma membrane (the latter with one exception) were not affected in the HEK293 cell expression system. We also analyzed two mutations in a Drosophila NCKX gene that have been reported to result in an increased susceptibility for seizures, and found that both resulted in mutant proteins with significantly reduced but observable NCKX activity. The data presented here support the genetic analyses that mutations in SLC24A4 and SLC24A5 are responsible for the phenotypic defects observed in human patients.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".