Mouse Ten-m/Odz Is a New Family of Dimeric Type II Transmembrane Proteins Expressed in Many Tissues

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Abstract
The Drosophila gene ten-m/odz is the only pair rule gene identified to date which is not a transcription factor. In an attempt to analyze the structure and the function of ten-m/odz in mouse, we isolated four murine ten-m cDNAs which code for proteins of 2,700–2,800 amino acids. All four proteins (Ten-m1–4) lack signal peptides at the NH2 terminus, but contain a short hydrophobic domain characteristic of transmembrane proteins, 300–400 amino acids after the NH2 terminus. About 200 amino acids COOH-terminal to this hydrophobic region are eight consecutive EGF-like domains.