tRNA (guanine-N(7)-)-methyltransferase subunit WDR4 is an enzyme subunit that in humans is encoded by the ''WDR4''

gene In biology, the word gene has two meanings. The Mendelian gene is a basic unit of heredity. The molecular gene is a sequence of nucleotides in DNA that is transcribed to produce a functional RNA. There are two types of molecular genes: protei ...

. This gene encodes a member of the

WD repeat The WD40 repeat (also known as the WD or beta-transducin repeat) is a short structural motif of approximately 40 amino acids, often terminating in a tryptophan-aspartic acid (W-D) dipeptide. Tandem copies of these repeats typically fold togethe ...

protein family. WD repeats are minimally conserved regions of approximately 40 amino acids typically bracketed by Gly-

His His or HIS may refer to: Computing * Hightech Information System, a Hong Kong graphics card company * Honeywell Information Systems * Hybrid intelligent system * Microsoft Host Integration Server Education * Hangzhou International School, ...

and Trp- Asp (GH-WD), which may facilitate formation of

heterotrimeric thumbnail, 400px, Trimeric form of a TNF-α mutant In biochemistry, a protein trimer is a macromolecular complex formed by three, usually non-covalently bound, macromolecules like proteins or nucleic acids. A protein trimer often occurs from the ...

or multiprotein complexes. Members of this family are involved in a variety of cellular processes, including

cell cycle progression The cell cycle, or cell-division cycle, is the sequential series of events that take place in a cell that causes it to divide into two daughter cells. These events include the growth of the cell, duplication of its DNA (DNA replication) and s ...

signal transduction Signal transduction is the process by which a chemical or physical signal is transmitted through a cell as a biochemical cascade, series of molecular events. Proteins responsible for detecting stimuli are generally termed receptor (biology), rece ...

apoptosis Apoptosis (from ) is a form of programmed cell death that occurs in multicellular organisms and in some eukaryotic, single-celled microorganisms such as yeast. Biochemistry, Biochemical events lead to characteristic cell changes (Morphology (biol ...

, and

gene regulation Regulation of gene expression, or gene regulation, includes a wide range of mechanisms that are used by cells to increase or decrease the production of specific gene products (protein or RNA). Sophisticated programs of gene expression are wide ...

. This gene is excluded as a candidate for a form of

nonsyndromic deafness Nonsyndromic deafness is hearing loss that is not associated with other signs and symptoms. In contrast, syndromic deafness involves hearing loss that occurs with abnormalities in other parts of the body. Nonsyndromic deafness constitutes 75% of a ...

(DFNB10), but is still a candidate for other disorders mapped to 21q22.3 as well as for the development of Down syndrome phenotypes. Two transcript variants encoding the same protein have been found for this gene.

See also

References

Further reading