Alternative titles; symbols
HGNC Approved Gene Symbol: ACIN1
Cytogenetic location: 14q11.2 Genomic coordinates (GRCh38) : 14:23,058,564-23,095,614 (from NCBI)
Apoptosis is defined by several unique morphologic nuclear changes, including chromatin condensation and nuclear fragmentation. These changes are triggered by the activation of a family of cysteine proteases called caspases (see 147678), and caspase-activated DNase (CAD/DFF40; 601883) and lamin protease (see 150330) have been implicated in some of these changes. CAD/DFF40 induces chromatin condensation in purified nuclei, but distinct caspase-activated factor(s) may be responsible for chromatin condensation. Sahara et al. (1999) used an in vitro system to purify a nuclear factor which induces apoptotic chromatin condensation after cleavage by caspase-3 (600636) without inducing DNA fragmentation from bovine thymus lysate. The name of the factor, 'acinus,' is both an acronym for 'apoptotic chromatin condensation inducer in the nucleus' and the Latin word for 'grape' or 'berry,' denotive of the grape-like appearance of the condensed chromatin. Immunodepletion experiments showed that acinus is essential for apoptotic chromatin condensation in vitro, and an antisense study revealed that acinus is also important in the induction of apoptotic chromatin condensation in cells.
As part of a search for human brain cDNA clones with the potential to encode large proteins in vitro, Ishikawa et al. (1998) independently identified the human homolog of acinus as cDNA KIAA0670. Ishikawa et al. (1998) found that KIAA0670 is ubiquitously expressed. Using the KIAA0670 clone, Sahara et al. (1999) obtained 3 isoforms of human acinus cDNA, the L, S, and S-prime forms, which they stated had probably been generated by alternative splicing. The acinus L, S, and S-prime cDNAs contain open reading frames of 1,341, 583, and 568 amino acid residues, respectively. Mouse and human S and S-prime acinus proteins share 94.5% and 95.2% amino acid sequence identity, respectively. Ishikawa et al. (1998) noted homology of acinus to U1 70-kD small nuclear ribonucleoprotein (180740).
By analysis of a radiation hybrid mapping panel, Ishikawa et al. (1998) mapped the human gene encoding acinus to chromosome 14.
Ishikawa, K., Nagase, T., Suyama, M., Miyajima, N., Tanaka, A., Kotani, H., Nomura, N., Ohara, O. Prediction of coding sequences of unidentified human genes. X. The complete sequences of 100 new cDNA clones from brain which can code for large proteins in vitro. DNA Res. 5: 169-176, 1998. [PubMed: 9734811] [Full Text: https://doi.org/10.1093/dnares/5.3.169]
Sahara, S., Aoto, M., Eguchi, Y., Imamoto, N., Yoneda, Y., Tsujimoto, Y. Acinus is a caspase-3-activated protein required for apoptotic chromatin condensation. Nature 401: 168-173, 1999. [PubMed: 10490026] [Full Text: https://doi.org/10.1038/43678]