The muscle acetylcholine receptor consiststs of 5 subunits of 4 different types: 2 alpha subunits and 1 each of the beta, gamma, and delta subunits. This gene encodes an alpha subunit that plays a role in acetlycholine binding/channel gating. Alternatively spliced transcript variants encoding different isoforms have been identified. [provided by RefSeq, Nov 2012]
Forensic Context
A study in Sprague-Dawley rats demonstrated that the CHRNA1 mRNA, as one of four original genes in an "up, no change, or down" model for wound age estimation, had its relative expression level simplified to a directional vector for analysis [Dang et al. DOI:10.1007/s00414-020-02411-z].