Acyl-CoA thioesterase 9 is a
protein
Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, respon ...
that is encoded by the human ACOT9
gene
In biology, the word gene (from , ; "... Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a b ...
. It is a member of the acyl-CoA
thioesterase
Thioesterases are enzymes which belong to the esterase family. Esterases, in turn, are one type of the several hydrolases known.
Thioesterases exhibit esterase activity (splitting of an ester into acid and alcohol, in the presence of water) spec ...
superfamily, which is a group of
enzymes that
hydrolyze
Hydrolysis (; ) is any chemical reaction in which a molecule of water breaks one or more chemical bonds. The term is used broadly for substitution, elimination, and solvation reactions in which water is the nucleophile.
Biological hydrolysis ...
Coenzyme A
Coenzyme A (CoA, SHCoA, CoASH) is a coenzyme, notable for its role in the synthesis and oxidation of fatty acids, and the oxidation of pyruvate in the citric acid cycle. All genomes sequenced to date encode enzymes that use coenzyme A as a subs ...
ester
In chemistry, an ester is a compound derived from an oxoacid (organic or inorganic) in which at least one hydroxyl group () is replaced by an alkoxy group (), as in the substitution reaction of a carboxylic acid and an alcohol. Glycerides ...
s. There is no known function, however it has been shown to act as a long-chain thioesterase at low concentrations, and a short-chain thioesterase at high concentrations.
Gene
Locus
The ACOT9 gene is located at p22.11 on
chromosome X
The X chromosome is one of the two sex-determining chromosomes ( allosomes) in many organisms, including mammals (the other is the Y chromosome), and is found in both males and females. It is a part of the XY sex-determination system and XO sex ...
. Located on the minus strand of the chromosome, the start is at 23,721,777
bp and the end is at 23,761,407 bp, which is a span of 39,631
base pairs
A base pair (bp) is a fundamental unit of double-stranded nucleic acids consisting of two nucleobases bound to each other by hydrogen bonds. They form the building blocks of the DNA double helix and contribute to the folded structure of both D ...
.
Aliases
ACOT9 gene is known primarily for encoding the Acyl-CoA thioesterase 9 protein. Other, less commonly used names for the gene are ACATE2,
and MT-ACT48.
Function
The protein encoded by the ACOT9 gene is part of a family of
Acyl-CoA
Acyl-CoA is a group of coenzymes that metabolize fatty acids. Acyl-CoA's are susceptible to beta oxidation, forming, ultimately, acetyl-CoA. The acetyl-CoA enters the citric acid cycle, eventually forming several equivalents of ATP. In this ...
thioesterase
Thioesterases are enzymes which belong to the esterase family. Esterases, in turn, are one type of the several hydrolases known.
Thioesterases exhibit esterase activity (splitting of an ester into acid and alcohol, in the presence of water) spec ...
s, which catalyze the
hydrolysis
Hydrolysis (; ) is any chemical reaction in which a molecule of water breaks one or more chemical bonds. The term is used broadly for substitution, elimination, and solvation reactions in which water is the nucleophile.
Biological hydrolysis ...
of various
Coenzyme A
Coenzyme A (CoA, SHCoA, CoASH) is a coenzyme, notable for its role in the synthesis and oxidation of fatty acids, and the oxidation of pyruvate in the citric acid cycle. All genomes sequenced to date encode enzymes that use coenzyme A as a subs ...
esters of various molecules to the free acid plus CoA. These enzymes have also been referred to in the literature as acyl-CoA hydrolases, acyl-CoA thioester hydrolases, and palmitoyl-CoA hydrolases. The reaction carried out by these
enzyme
Enzymes () are proteins that act as biological catalysts by accelerating chemical reactions. The molecules upon which enzymes may act are called substrate (chemistry), substrates, and the enzyme converts the substrates into different molecule ...
s is as follows:
CoA ester + H
2O → free acid + coenzyme A
These enzymes use the same
substrate
Substrate may refer to:
Physical layers
*Substrate (biology), the natural environment in which an organism lives, or the surface or medium on which an organism grows or is attached
** Substrate (locomotion), the surface over which an organism lo ...
s as long-chain acyl-CoA synthetases, but have a unique purpose in that they generate the free acid and CoA, as opposed to long-chain acyl-CoA synthetases, which ligate fatty acids to CoA, to produce the CoA ester. The role of the ACOT- family of enzymes is not well understood; however, it has been suggested that they play a crucial role in regulating the intracellular levels of CoA esters, Coenzyme A, and free fatty acids. Recent studies have shown that Acyl-CoA esters have many more functions than simply an energy source. These functions include
allosteric regulation
In biochemistry, allosteric regulation (or allosteric control) is the regulation of an enzyme by binding an effector molecule at a site other than the enzyme's active site.
The site to which the effector binds is termed the ''allosteric sit ...
of enzymes such as
acetyl-CoA carboxylase
Acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACC) is a biotin-dependent enzyme () that catalyzes the irreversible carboxylation of acetyl-CoA to produce malonyl-CoA through its two catalytic activities, biotin carboxylase (BC) and carboxyltransferase (CT). ACC ...
,
hexokinase
A hexokinase is an enzyme that phosphorylates hexoses (six-carbon sugars), forming hexose phosphate. In most organisms, glucose is the most important substrate for hexokinases, and glucose-6-phosphate is the most important product. Hexoki ...
IV, and the citrate condensing enzyme. Long-chain acyl-CoAs also regulate opening of
ATP-sensitive potassium channel
An ATP-sensitive potassium channel (or KATP channel) is a type of potassium channel that is gated by intracellular nucleotides, ATP and ADP. ATP-sensitive potassium channels are composed of Kir6.x-type subunits and sulfonylurea receptor (SUR) ...
s and activation of
Calcium ATPase
Ca2+ ATPase is a form of P-ATPase that transfers calcium after a muscle has contracted. The two kinds of calcium ATPase are:
*Plasma membrane Ca2+ ATPase (PMCA)
*Sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca2+ ATPase (SERCA)
Plasma membrane Ca2+ ATPase (PMCA)
Pl ...
s, thereby regulating
insulin
Insulin (, from Latin ''insula'', 'island') is a peptide hormone produced by beta cells of the pancreatic islets encoded in humans by the ''INS'' gene. It is considered to be the main anabolic hormone of the body. It regulates the metabol ...
secretion. A number of other cellular events are also mediated via acyl-CoAs, for example signal transduction through
protein kinase C
In cell biology, Protein kinase C, commonly abbreviated to PKC (EC 2.7.11.13), is a family of protein kinase enzymes that are involved in controlling the function of other proteins through the phosphorylation of hydroxyl groups of serine and ...
, inhibition of
retinoic acid
Retinoic acid (used simplified here for all-''trans''-retinoic acid) is a metabolite of vitamin A1 (all-''trans''- retinol) that mediates the functions of vitamin A1 required for growth and development. All-''trans''-retinoic acid is required in ...
-induced apoptosis, and involvement in budding and fusion of the
endomembrane system
The endomembrane system is composed of the different membranes (endomembranes) that are suspended in the cytoplasm within a eukaryotic cell. These membranes divide the cell into functional and structural compartments, or organelles. In eukaryote ...
. Acyl-CoAs also mediate protein targeting to various membranes and regulation of
G Protein
G proteins, also known as guanine nucleotide-binding proteins, are a family of proteins that act as molecular switches inside cells, and are involved in transmitting signals from a variety of stimuli outside a cell to its interior. Their ...
α subunits, because they are substrates for protein acylation. In the
mitochondria, acyl-CoA esters are involved in the acylation of mitochondrial NAD+ dependent
dehydrogenase
A dehydrogenase is an enzyme belonging to the group of oxidoreductases that oxidizes a substrate by reducing an electron acceptor, usually NAD+/NADP+ or a flavin coenzyme such as FAD or FMN. Like all catalysts, they catalyze reverse as well as ...
s; because these enzymes are responsible for
amino acid catabolism
Amino acids are organic compounds that contain both amino and carboxylic acid functional groups. Although hundreds of amino acids exist in nature, by far the most important are the alpha-amino acids, which comprise proteins. Only 22 alpha ami ...
, this acylation renders the whole process inactive. This mechanism may provide metabolic crosstalk and act to regulate the
NADH
Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) is a coenzyme central to metabolism. Found in all living cells, NAD is called a dinucleotide because it consists of two nucleotides joined through their phosphate groups. One nucleotide contains an aden ...
/NAD+ ratio in order to maintain optimal mitochondrial
beta oxidation
In biochemistry and metabolism, beta-oxidation is the catabolic process by which fatty acid molecules are broken down in the cytosol in prokaryotes and in the mitochondria in eukaryotes to generate acetyl-CoA, which enters the citric acid cyc ...
of fatty acids. The role of CoA esters in
lipid metabolism
Lipid metabolism is the synthesis and degradation of lipids in cells, involving the breakdown or storage of fats for energy and the synthesis of structural and functional lipids, such as those involved in the construction of cell membranes. In anim ...
and numerous other intracellular processes are well defined, and thus it is hypothesized that ACOT- enzymes play a role in modulating the processes these metabolites are involved in.
Homology/Evolution
Orthologs
There are many
ortholog
Sequence homology is the biological homology between DNA, RNA, or protein sequences, defined in terms of shared ancestry in the evolutionary history of life. Two segments of DNA can have shared ancestry because of three phenomena: either a spe ...
s of ACOT9, the house mouse (''Mus musculus'') being one of the most similar, where the ACOT9 gene is found at 72.38cM on chromosome X. The range of orthologs extends to mammals, birds, amphibians, anamorphic fungi, and others.
Paralogs
In mice, which is one of the closest orthologs, ACOT10 is a known paralog of the ACOT9 gene.
Expression

Expression of the ACOT9 is
ubiquitous
Omnipresence or ubiquity is the property of being present anywhere and everywhere. The term omnipresence is most often used in a religious context as an attribute of a deity or God, supreme being, while the term ubiquity is generally used to des ...
throughout the tissues in humans. Tissues with a value of over 500 in the large-scale analysis of the human transcriptome were the globus pallidus and colorectal adenocarcinoma. The expressed sequence tag (or EST) abundance profile also shows
ubiquitous
Omnipresence or ubiquity is the property of being present anywhere and everywhere. The term omnipresence is most often used in a religious context as an attribute of a deity or God, supreme being, while the term ubiquity is generally used to des ...
/near ubiquitous, expression throughout human tissues.
Transcription factors
There are numerous
transcription factor
In molecular biology, a transcription factor (TF) (or sequence-specific DNA-binding factor) is a protein that controls the rate of transcription of genetic information from DNA to messenger RNA, by binding to a specific DNA sequence. The fu ...
s throughout the ACOT9 promoter sequence. Some of the notable factors are
heat shock factor
In molecular biology, heat shock factors (HSF), are the transcription factors that regulate the expression of the heat shock proteins. A typical example is the heat shock factor of '' Drosophila melanogaster''.
Function
Heat shock factor ...
s and
transcription factor II B
Transcription factor II B (TFIIB) is a general transcription factor that is involved in the formation of the RNA polymerase II preinitiation complex (PIC) and aids in stimulating transcription initiation. TFIIB is localised to the nucleus and pro ...
(TFIIB) recognition elements.
Secondary structure
There are two regions in the ACOT9 gene sequence that are labeled as BFIT (Brown Fat Inducible Thioesterase) and BACH (Brain Acyl CoA Hydrolase) regions. These regions are part of a hotdog fold
superfamily
SUPERFAMILY is a database and search platform of structural and functional annotation for all proteins and genomes. It classifies amino acid sequences into known structural domains, especially into SCOP superfamilies. Domains are functional, str ...
, which has been found to be used in a variety of cell roles.
Predictions show there to be various
alpha-helices
The alpha helix (α-helix) is a common motif in the secondary structure of proteins and is a right hand-helix conformation in which every backbone N−H group hydrogen bonds to the backbone C=O group of the amino acid located four residues earli ...
throughout the structure, suggesting it is a
transmembrane protein
A transmembrane protein (TP) is a type of integral membrane protein that spans the entirety of the cell membrane. Many transmembrane proteins function as gateways to permit the transport of specific substances across the membrane. They frequentl ...
.
Interactions
A mitochondrial cleavage site can be found at amino acid 30 in the ACOT9 sequence, and the probability of export to the
mitochondria is 0.9374.
The Acyl-CoA thioesterase 9 protein is estimated to be 60.9% mitochondrial, 21.7%
cytoplasmic
In cell biology, the cytoplasm is all of the material within a eukaryotic cell, enclosed by the cell membrane, except for the cell nucleus. The material inside the nucleus and contained within the nuclear membrane is termed the nucleoplasm. T ...
, 8.7% nuclear, 4.3% in the
plasma membrane
The cell membrane (also known as the plasma membrane (PM) or cytoplasmic membrane, and historically referred to as the plasmalemma) is a biological membrane that separates and protects the interior of all cells from the outside environment (t ...
, and 4.3% in the
endoplasmic reticulum
The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is, in essence, the transportation system of the eukaryotic cell, and has many other important functions such as protein folding. It is a type of organelle made up of two subunits – rough endoplasmic reticulum ( ...
.
The ACOT9 protein has been found to interact with the following proteins either experimentally or through co-expression:
*
C1orf151
*
MCTS1
*
C1GALT1C1
*
FBXW12
*
RLIM
*
RPS6KA3
protein S6 kinase, 90kDa, polypeptide 3, also s RPS6KA3, is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the ''RPS6KA3'' gene.
Function
This gene encodes a member of the RSK (ribosomal S6 kinase) family of serine/threonine kinases. This kinase co ...
*
RAB9A
Ras-related protein Rab-9A is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ''RAB9A'' gene.
Interactions
RAB9A has been shown to interact with RABEPK, TIP47
Mannose-6-phosphate receptor binding protein 1 (M6PRBP1) is a protein which in humans ...
*
UBC
The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks among the top three ...
*
CXorf26
*
HCCS
References
External links
*
Further reading
*
*
*
*
{{Thioesterases
Human proteins
Enzymes