“Lechward K, Glaser W, Falkner S. ABCA4 is ubiquitously expressed in mouse tissues and forms high molecular weight complexes. J Cell Biochem. 2010 Jan 20. [Epub ahead of print]”

ABC transporters are the focus of extensive research attempts due to their natural ability of selective transport of huge variety of substances into and out of the cells. They are being a potential target for pharmacologists and drug designers as well as basic scientists. We were interested to study the expression patterns of mouse proteins which belong to the “A” family of ABCs as well as to analyze their protein–protein interactions. The most exciting finding came with the studies of ABCA4, which mRNA was distributed in several mouse tissues, including eyes, brain, heart, lungs, liver, and testis, and the corresponding protein was present in brain, heart, eyes, and testis. Previously, ABCA4 was described as retina‐specific transporter, therefore, we extended our research to clarify where ABCA4 is expressed on RNA level, where its protein is expressed and what are its interacting proteins, in tissues different then retina. By several techniques which utilized the protein‐specific antibody we proved that ABCA4 is not a retina‐specific ABC transporter and that we purified it from brain and testis as well as from eyes and the heart. Analysis of the co‐purifying proteins by mass‐spectrometry had shown that apart from ABCA4, ABCA1, and ABCC3 were present in cross‐linked fraction. We also identified map kinase 12 and jade1S protein as putative ABCA4 interacting proteins. J. Cell. Biochem. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.