Basic Information

Symbol
SLC38A4
RNA class
mRNA
Alias
Solute Carrier Family 38 Member 4 SNAT4 NAT3 ATA3 Sodium-Coupled Neutral Amino Acid Transporter 4 PAAT Na(+)-Coupled Neutral Amino Acid Transporter 4 System A Amino Acid Transporter 3 System N Amino Acid Transporter 3 Amino Acid Transporter A3 Solute Carrier Family 38, Member 4 Amino Acid Transporter System A3 N Amino Acid Transporter 3
Location (GRCh38)
12:46763642-46832500
UCSC Genome Browser Search in Marker Scope
Forensic tag(s)
Postmortem interval inference
External database
HGNC NCBI Ensembl OMIM UniProt GTEx

MANE select

Transcript ID
NM_018018.5
Sequence length
3983.0 nt
GC content
0.3816

Transcripts

ID Sequence Length GC content
NM_001143824.2 NCBI
ACUGGGGUGUGCGCAGCGCCUGGAGCAUGAGCCGGGUGGUGGCGUGCAC… 3791 nt 0.3785
NM_018018.5 NCBI
ACUGGGGUGUGCGCAGCGCCUGGAGCAUGAGCCGGGUGGUGGCGUGCAC… 3983 nt 0.3816
Summary

SLC38A4 is found predominantly in liver and transports both cationic and neutral amino acids. The transport of cationic amino acids by SLC38A4 is Na(+) and pH independent, while the transport of neutral amino acids is Na(+) and pH dependent (Hatanaka et al., 2001 [PubMed 11342143]).[supplied by OMIM, Mar 2008]

Forensic Context

A study in mice and zebrafish demonstrated that the SLC38A4 transcript, a sodium-coupled neutral amino acid symporter, increased in relative abundance within 0.5 hours postmortem [Pozhitkov et al. DOI:10.1098/rsob.160267]. This finding was part of a broader investigation into postmortem transcriptome dynamics, which identified 1063 genes with significantly increased transcript levels after death in zebrafish and mouse, revealing a step-wise shutdown process with functional categories including transport, stress, immunity, inflammation, apoptosis, development, epigenetic regulation, and cancer.In a separate investigation using rat liver tissue, the SLC38A4 was identified as an amino acid transport system A3 and was found to be down-regulated on day 1 following a 20% total body surface area burn injury [Jayaraman et al. DOI:10.1016/j.jss.2007.05.025].