Tuftelin

Tuftelin is an acidic phosphorylated glycoprotein found in tooth enamel. In humans, the tuftelin protein is encoded by the TUFT1 gene.^[5][6] It is an acidic protein that is thought to play a role in dental enamel mineralization and is implicated in caries susceptibility. It is also thought to be involved with adaptation to hypoxia, mesenchymal stem cell function, and neurotrophin nerve growth factor mediated neuronal differentiation.^[7]

TUFT1
Identifiers
Aliases	TUFT1, entrez:7286, tuftelin 1
External IDs	OMIM: 600087; MGI: 109572; HomoloGene: 7985; GeneCards: TUFT1; OMA:TUFT1 - orthologs
Gene location (Human) Chr. Chromosome 1 (human)[1] Band 1q21.3 Start 151,540,305 bp[1] End 151,583,583 bp[1]
Gene location (Mouse) Chr. Chromosome 3 (mouse)[2] Band 3|3 F2.1 Start 94,520,064 bp[2] End 94,566,179 bp[2]
RNA expression pattern Bgee Human Mouse (ortholog) Top expressed in amniotic fluid pancreatic ductal cell skin of thigh hair follicle skin of arm skin of hip gingival epithelium skin of abdomen buccal mucosa cell human penis Top expressed in lip skin of external ear esophagus retinal pigment epithelium epidermis hair follicle gastrula corneal stroma decidua skin of back More reference expression data BioGPS n/a
Gene ontology Molecular function structural constituent of tooth enamel protein binding Cellular component cytoplasm extracellular region intracellular anatomical structure Biological process biomineral tissue development bone mineralization odontogenesis intracellular signal transduction Sources:Amigo / QuickGO
Orthologs Species Human Mouse Entrez 7286 22156 Ensembl ENSG00000143367 ENSMUSG00000005968 UniProt Q9NNX1 O08970 RefSeq (mRNA) NM_001126337 NM_001301317 NM_020127 NM_011656 NM_001293728 RefSeq (protein) NP_001119809 NP_001288246 NP_064512 NP_001280657 NP_035786 Location (UCSC) Chr 1: 151.54 – 151.58 Mb Chr 3: 94.52 – 94.57 Mb PubMed search [3] [4]
Wikidata
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Classification

There are two kinds of enamel proteins: amelogenins and nonamelogenins. Tuftelin falls under nonamelogenins.^[8]

Function

This protein is formed for a short time during amelogenesis. The function of tuftelins is under contention, but it is proposed that it acts to start the mineralization process of enamel during tooth development.^[9][10]

Other significant proteins in enamel are amelogenins, enamelins, and ameloblastins.

Research

The human encoding gene for tuftelin (TUFT1) was cloned by Profs. Danny Deutsch and Aharon Palmon from the Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Dental Medicine in Jerusalem.^[6]

Interactions

Tuftelin has been shown to interact with TFIP11.^[11]