CTHRC1: Products

CTHRC1 (Collagen triple helix repeat-containing protein 1) is a 28-30 kDa, secreted glycoprotein that bears similarity to the C1q/TNFalpha-related family of proteins. It is expressed by disparate cell types, including renal epithelium, neurons, osteoblasts, and smooth muscle cells. Functionally, it is recognized to be induced by BMP-2 and to block TGF beta-induced collagen type I and III synthesis. Mouse CTHRC1 is 245 amino acids in length. It contains a 32 amino acid (aa) signal sequence, a 16 aa prosegment (aa 33-48), and a 197 aa mature region that shows one collagen-like domain (aa 59-92). Proteolytic processing may generate multiple CTHRC1 isoforms. There is the potential for an intracellular full-length 33 kDa, 245 aa form, plus extracellular isoforms that are 28 kDa (aa 33-245), 26 kDa (aa 49-245), 20 kDa (aa 98-245) and 18 kDa and 16 kDa in size, the last two representing variants of the 20 kDa form with C-terminal processing. CTHRC1 may undergo dimerization, trimerization and oligomerization. One mouse splice variant shows a deletion of aa 53-126. Full-length mouse CTHRC1 shares 99% and 93% aa sequence identity with rat and human CTHRC1, respectively.