Steemit Usernames Written In the Genetic Codes

Endless lines of numbers and gene symbols is all I've been looking at for the past several days.

I know, sounds waaaay more fun than it really is!!!

Of course it does, keep telling that to yourself...

Ahem. Anyways.

During all that boring fun work, I got really bored playful, because I noticed that some genes have extremely interesting names, such as SMURF1, DIABLO, POKEMON (unfortunately, they had to rename this one to ZBTB7 because The Pokémon Company did not want the bad publicity with a cancer-causing gene having their trademark name - these guys are such mood killers!), etc. An idea crossed my mind - to investigate which genes share some of our precious Steemit usernames and what is their function in human and other genomes. Ready to get bored to death have some fun?

ANGEL1 and ANGEL2

@scienceangel

I guess I should start with myself, just for the sake of breaking the ice, of course, and not because I think it's totally AWESOME that these genes are called "angels"...

ANGEL1 and ANGEL2 are relatively recently discovered human homologs, belonging to the CCR4 family (carbon catabolite repression 4) with their functions still not completely elucidated. ANGEL1 protein was found to bind to eIF4E, which is a very important protein for the process of mRNA translation in eukaryotes^[1]. Furthermore, it was discovered that ANGEL1 competes with eIF4G in the process of binding to eIF4E^[1], and that ANGEL1-derived peptide, A1-IRS interacts with eIF4E, inhibits translation (protein synthesis) and induces fast and massive cell death in several cancer cell lines^[2]. Based on their results, authors concluded that A1-IRS may be new cytotoxic peptide with potential clinical applications.

ANGEL2 protein is thought to be involved in carcinogenesis, by inducing G1 cell cycle arrest by binding to p21 mRNA and stabilizing it^[3].

SCO1 and SCO2

@sco

Cytochrome c oxidase, also called Complex IV, is located in inner mitochondrial membrane and represents last enzyme in an electron transport chain (ETC). This enzyme has a very important role in maintaining life - it converts molecular oxygen to water. During this process, an electrochemical gradient is formed through the mitochondrial membrane, which is then used for ATP production^[4].

SCO1 and SCO2 genes represent copper metallochaperones involved in synthesis and maturation of cytochrome c oxidase subunit II.

Protein ALEX (GNAS complex locus)

@alexs1320, @alexdory, @alexbeyman

How many of you Alexes are there?

Anyways, good news for you guys is that this gene locus has extremely complex expression pattern, meaning that, besides giving rise to transcripts that can be expressed maternally, paternally, or biallelically, the expression can be performed from four different promoters and resulting transcripts can be derived by alternative splicing of four 5' exons!

Whatever, just ignore her, maybe she'll go away and leave us alone...

_{Due to the lack of appropriate image here, here's a completely unrelated photo of a very amused kitten in a cup, author tochichi, CC BY-SA 2.0}

One of the transcripts of this gene contains two overlapping ORF (open reading frames) and ALEX protein is encoded by one of them (XL-exon1). It was shown that functional polymorphism in XL-exon1 in two families has led to increased bleeding tendency after injuries, neurological problems and brachydactyly. These symptoms were demonstrated to result from paternally inherited insertion within the ALEX protein^[5].

EGO (or EGOT)

@Egotheist

This is a very interesting gene, because it belongs to so-called RNA genes, meaning that it gets transcribed into non-coding RNA (ncRNA). ncRNAs are RNA molecules that don't get translated into protein products, but they exhibit their function as RNA molecules. EGO (eosinophil granule ontogeny) gene is coding for long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) which has a major role in eosinophil hematopoietic cells development in the bone marrow^[6]. Moreover, it was found that low levels of EGO lncRNA are correlated with poor prognosis in breast cancer^[7].

Zeste gene

@zest

This gene plays a crucial role in the development of vinegar fly (Drosophila melanogaster), which is a very important model organism in genetics. Some of the reasons why this fly is widely used in research are: it can be easily cultured in laboratory conditions, it has short generation time, high fecundity, and only four pairs of chromosomes, which facilitates genetic studies of mutants^[8]. Protein product of zeste gene belongs to the group of DNA binding proteins, meaning that they regulate the activity of other genes, and Zeste protein is included in transcriptional regulation of trithorax (trxG) and Polycomb (PcG) gene groups^[9].

ABI1, ABI2 and ABI3

@abigail-dantes

ABI1, ABI2 and ABI3 genes belong to ABI protein family and they're involved in actin cytoskeleton polymerization and remodeling. This function is especially pronounced during the process of T cell receptor activation, where actin polymerization plays a critical role for the fidelity and accuracy of the T cell response to antigen. In T cells, this role of ABI proteins is achieved by forming the Abi/Wave protein complex^[10]. Moreover, it was discovered that ABI1 functions as oncogene in hepatocellular carcinoma and that high expression of this protein is correlated with poor prognosis in patients with this disease^[11].

katE

@katerinaramm

Protein product of katE gene belongs to the enzyme class known as catalases, which functions to protect Escherichia coli from oxidative damage caused by reactive oxygen species (ROS). This enzyme performs its catalytic activity by decomposition of two molecules of hydrogen peroxide into molecular oxygen and two molecules of water^[12]:

2 H₂O₂ = O₂ + 2 H₂O

The KatE enzyme (also called hydroperoxidase II, HPII) contains a cofactor, heme d, and belongs to the group of monofunctional catalases^[13].

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These are only gene names corresponding to some of the Steemit users I could find that make sense and that are related to the important biological processes.

If you happen to find some interesting gene that is same or similar to your username, feel free to share the fun in the comment section!

Until the next extremely boring fun post, relax and keep steemSTEM! ;)