Plays a role in biomineralization. Seems to regulate the formation of crystallites during the secretory stage of tooth enamel development. Thought to play a major role in the structural organization and mineralization of developing enamel.
Am. J. Hum. Genet. 50, 303-316 (1992)[PubMed:1734713]
Amelogenins, a family of extracellular matrix proteins of the dental enamel, are transiently but abundantly expressed by ameloblasts during tooth development. Amelogenins seem to regulate the formation of crystallites during the secretory stage of enamel development, while they are specifically degraded during tooth-bud maturation. In this paper we report the characterization of the AMGX and AMGY genes on the short arms of the human X and Y chromosomes which encode the amelogenins. Our studies on the expression of the amelogenin genes in male developing tooth buds showed that both the AMGX and AMGY genes are transcriptionally active and encode potentially functional proteins. We have isolated genomic and cDNA clones from both the AMGX and AMGY loci and have studied the sequence organization of these two genes. Reverse transcriptase (RT)PCR amplification of the 5' portion of the amelogenin transcripts revealed several alternatively spliced products. The splicing pattern observed in the Y-derived mRNA varies from that of the X-derived mRNA. The promoter regions from both genes and the predicted amelogenin protein sequences are presented. This information will be useful for studying the molecular basis of X-linked amelogenesis imperfecta, for understanding the evolution and regulation of gene expression on the mammalian sex chromosomes, and for investigating the role of amelogenin genes during tooth development.
Formation of hard tissues that consist mainly of inorganic compounds, and also contain a small amounts of organic matrices that are believed to play important roles in their formation.
Protein involved in the process by which mineral crystals are deposited in an organized fashion in the matrix (either cellular or extracellular) of living organisms. Such process give rise to inorganic-based structures such as bone, tooth, ivory, shells, cuticles, corals or bacterial magnetosomes.
A reference proteome is a set of protein sequences derived from a complete proteome which constitutes a defined standard for a particular user community. Reference proteomes are manually defined according to a number of criteria. They cover the proteomes of well- studied model organisms and other proteomes of interest for biomedical and biotechnological research. Reference proteomes have been selected to provide broad coverage of the tree of life, and constitute a representative cross-section of the taxonomic diversity to be found within UniProtKB.