Introduction
The discovery of attractin was an accident. While examining human blood fractions for isolation of a circulating free form of CD26/dipeptidyl peptidase IV (DPPIV/DPP4), attractin was discovered as a large extracellular protein copurifying with the sCD26. The chronology of its discovery is described in the link below. A further link is provided to coverage on NPR's "All Things Considered" following the early articles in 1999 describing mahogany, a mouse ortholog of human attractin described a year earlier in research at the DFCI. Following discussion of interested parties, the term attractin was used to describe the protein products of the highly-conserved Atrn/ATRN locus across species (see Nomenclature below....).
Nomenclature
Attractin started of life as glycoprotein 175 (gp175) to describe a protein circulating in serum that had properties apparently similar to those of CD26, a dipeptidyl peptidase IV (DPP4) enzyme. To reflect the enzyme activity but to differentiate it from CD26, it was renamed DPPT-L. Upon isolation of the sequence, that bore no resemblance to CD26, and to describe it's function of aiding T cells to cluster around monocytes, it was then renamed attractin.
The sequence was deposited in November 1997 with a "hold" upon release until publication. It was not known at the time that the Nagle group at the University of Texas had isolated a water-borne mollusc pheromone that they had also named attractin and had deposited the sequence, also with a "hold", in January 1997. Upon final publication of the initial human soluble "attractin" sequence in September 1998, the gene symbol ATT was requested to represent attractin, but it was found that this symbol had already been taken (Alternative Testis Transcripts) - we are not sure if a symbol has been assigned to mollusc attractin. A quick search revealed that the Nagle group had already published their article in April 1998 , but had not yet released the hold on the sequence. The symbol ATRN was then assigned to human soluble attractin. The subsequent identification of the mouse mahogany locus (mg) as coding for a membrane form of attractin led to a discussion of whether the mouse form should retain the assignation mg, or should be renamed Atrn. The latter option was chosen and the mouse mahogany alleles are now represented as superscripts to the Atrn symbol. The mollusc pheromone and the product of the Atrn gene have only their name in common, in no other way are they related and neither are related to a plant-derived "attractin", used in orchard/grove management and recently advertised as being a specific attractant for olive and orange fruit flies without attracting bees!
Kuramoto and colleagues have shown that the zitter (zi) mutation in rats is actually a mutation in the Atrn locus leading to incomplete mRNA transcripts. In addition, the rat myelin vacuolation (mv) mutant results from a deletion of the proximal promoter and exon 1 of the Atrn gene and the black tremor (bt) mutation in hamsters is also consequent to a defect at the attractin locus. Accordingly, attractin is the product of the human ATRN gene, the mouse mg gene, the hamster bt gene and the rat zi and mv genes.
The CG5634 locus in Drosophila codes for a membrane attractin homologue. The name Distracted and gene symbol dsd was assigned to the locus - this became official in 2003 (A. Dros. Res. Conf. 44: 717C (2003)).
The F33C8.1 ORF in C. elegans was officially named tag-53 (TAG53_CAEEL) where "Tag" represents "Temporarily-assigned gene" and is now named atrn-1.
Attractin started of life as glycoprotein 175 (gp175) to describe a protein circulating in serum that had properties apparently similar to those of CD26, a dipeptidyl peptidase IV (DPP4) enzyme. To reflect the enzyme activity but to differentiate it from CD26, it was renamed DPPT-L. Upon isolation of the sequence, that bore no resemblance to CD26, and to describe it's function of aiding T cells to cluster around monocytes, it was then renamed attractin.
The sequence was deposited in November 1997 with a "hold" upon release until publication. It was not known at the time that the Nagle group at the University of Texas had isolated a water-borne mollusc pheromone that they had also named attractin and had deposited the sequence, also with a "hold", in January 1997. Upon final publication of the initial human soluble "attractin" sequence in September 1998, the gene symbol ATT was requested to represent attractin, but it was found that this symbol had already been taken (Alternative Testis Transcripts) - we are not sure if a symbol has been assigned to mollusc attractin. A quick search revealed that the Nagle group had already published their article in April 1998 , but had not yet released the hold on the sequence. The symbol ATRN was then assigned to human soluble attractin. The subsequent identification of the mouse mahogany locus (mg) as coding for a membrane form of attractin led to a discussion of whether the mouse form should retain the assignation mg, or should be renamed Atrn. The latter option was chosen and the mouse mahogany alleles are now represented as superscripts to the Atrn symbol. The mollusc pheromone and the product of the Atrn gene have only their name in common, in no other way are they related and neither are related to a plant-derived "attractin", used in orchard/grove management and recently advertised as being a specific attractant for olive and orange fruit flies without attracting bees!
Kuramoto and colleagues have shown that the zitter (zi) mutation in rats is actually a mutation in the Atrn locus leading to incomplete mRNA transcripts. In addition, the rat myelin vacuolation (mv) mutant results from a deletion of the proximal promoter and exon 1 of the Atrn gene and the black tremor (bt) mutation in hamsters is also consequent to a defect at the attractin locus. Accordingly, attractin is the product of the human ATRN gene, the mouse mg gene, the hamster bt gene and the rat zi and mv genes.
The CG5634 locus in Drosophila codes for a membrane attractin homologue. The name Distracted and gene symbol dsd was assigned to the locus - this became official in 2003 (A. Dros. Res. Conf. 44: 717C (2003)).
The F33C8.1 ORF in C. elegans was officially named tag-53 (TAG53_CAEEL) where "Tag" represents "Temporarily-assigned gene" and is now named atrn-1.