The CHiPS Domain--ancient traces for the Hermansky-Pudlak syndrome

Marta Hoffman-Sommer1, Marcin Grynberg, Roza Kucharczyk

  • 1Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Pawinskiego 5a, Warsaw 02-106, Poland.

Hermansky-Pudlak syndrome (HPS) is a rare disorder caused by malfunctions of lysosomes and specialized lysosome-related organelles, resulting primarily in oculocutaneous albinism and bleeding diathesis. The majority of the HPS genes have been described as novel, but herein we report the identification of a conserved protein family which includes human HPS4, as well as distant homologs for other HPS genes. Our results suggest that the cellular machinery involved in the HPS syndrome is ancient.

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