This page was produced as an assignment for Genetics 677, a undergraduate course at The University of Wisconsin - Madison
capn3 Gene Ontology What functions, processes, and cellular components are associated with CAPN3?
The Gene Ontology Project is an attempt to organize the numerous attributes, functions, and annotations of genes and gene products from online databases into a universal system of three controlled, organism-independent vocabularies (ontologies) describing biological processes, cellular localization, and molecular function [1]. To find out more about the processes, functions, and localization of capn3 in the cell, I searched AmiGO using the UniProt accession for CAPN3, p94 (CAN3_HUMAN) and found a total of 49 associated terms, which I compared to what I had previously found in the literature. The following tables show cellular localization and molecular function associations of CAPN3 (click on figures to view source pages).
*The list for biological associations was too large to picture and can be viewed here.
Cellular Components Where can CAPN3 be found in the cell?
8 terms for CAPN3 localization within cells. The data is consistent with the reported muscle-specificity (T-tubule and Z disc in the sarcomere, the basic unit of muscle).
Molecular Function What does CAPN3 do at the molecular level?
11 terms for CAPN3 molecular function were found and are consistent with functions reported in the literature. We see that CAPN3 is an enzyme dependent on Calcium ion for activation of its proteolytic activity at cysteine residues.
Graphical Representation of Molecular Function Associations (from AmiGO)
Discussion
Of the 49 GO terms assigned to CAPN3, 11 describe molecular function, 8 intracellular localization, and 30 biological processes (not pictured). The terms found for each ontology on AmiGO are consistent with the molecular functions (cysteine protease, calcium-dependent, interaction with Titin), intracellular localization in muscle cells (cytoplasm, myofibril (muscle fiber), T-tubule, and Z Disk of the sarcomere), and biological processes (sarcomere remodeling, autolysis, apoptosis,signal transduction, protein modification) (Data not shown).