TorsinA: movement at many levels

TorsinA is the causative protein in the human neurologic disease early onset torsin dystonia, a movement disorder involving dysfunction in the basal ganglia without apparent neurodegeneration. Most cases result from a dominantly acting three-base pair deletion in the TOR1A gene causing loss of a glutamic acid near the carboxyl terminus of torsinA. Torsins are members of the AAA(+) superfamily of ATPases and are present in all multicellular organisms. Initial studies suggest that torsinA is an ER protein involved in chaperone functions and/or membrane movement.