Seroatlas · Human Serome Atlas

ATG4A

Cysteine protease ATG4A

Also known as: APG4A, ATG4A_HUMAN, AUTL2

Cross-references: UniProt · Ensembl · Human Protein Atlas · GeneCards · NCBI Gene

Protein identityUniProt · HPA

UniProt accession
Q8WYN0
Gene
ATG4A
Ensembl
ENSG00000101844
Chromosome
X
Canonical length
398 aa
Protein class
Enzymes, Predicted intracellular proteins
Subcellular location
Actin filaments,Microtubules

OverviewNCBI Gene

Autophagy is the process by which endogenous proteins and damaged organelles are destroyed intracellularly. Autophagy is postulated to be essential for cell homeostasis and cell remodeling during differentiation, metamorphosis, non-apoptotic cell death, and aging. Reduced levels of autophagy have been described in some malignant tumors, and a role for autophagy in controlling the unregulated cell growth linked to cancer has been proposed. This gene encodes a member of the autophagin protein family. The encoded protein is also designated as a member of the C-54 family of cysteine proteases. [provided by RefSeq, Mar 2016]

Canonical amino-acid sequenceUniProt

398 residues, UniProt reviewed canonical sequence.

>Q8WYN0|ATG4A
     1  MESVLSKYED QITIFTDYLE EYPDTDELVW ILGKQHLLKT EKSKLLSDIS ARLWFTYRRK
    61  FSPIGGTGPS SDAGWGCMLR CGQMMLAQAL ICRHLGRDWS WEKQKEQPKE YQRILQCFLD
   121  RKDCCYSIHQ MAQMGVGEGK SIGEWFGPNT VAQVLKKLAL FDEWNSLAVY VSMDNTVVIE
   181  DIKKMCRVLP LSADTAGDRP PDSLTASNQS KGTSAYCSAW KPLLLIVPLR LGINQINPVY
   241  VDAFKECFKM PQSLGALGGK PNNAYYFIGF LGDELIFLDP HTTQTFVDTE ENGTVNDQTF
   301  HCLQSPQRMN ILNLDPSVAL GFFCKEEKDF DNWCSLVQKE ILKENLRMFE LVQKHPSHWP
   361  PFVPPAKPEV TTTGAEFIDS TEQLEEFDLE EDFEILSV

LocalizationUniProt · AlphaFold · HPA

Whether an antibody against ATG4A can act on the native protein depends on physical access: surface and secreted proteins are reachable by circulating antibodies, intracellular proteins usually are not.

Antibody reachability
Intracellular
Secreted
No
Transmembrane segments
0
Mean surface accessibility (rSASA)
0.31
Highest tissue expression
18 nTPM

Expression across tissuesHPA

Tissue

  • skeletal muscle: 18 nTPM
  • tongue: 17 nTPM
  • liver: 17 nTPM
  • choroid plexus: 17 nTPM
  • pancreas: 16 nTPM
  • kidney: 13 nTPM

Single-cell type

  • esophageal apical cells: 72 nCPM
  • plasma cells: 36 nCPM
  • pancreatic acinar cells: 35 nCPM
  • parietal cells: 34 nCPM
  • erythrocyte progenitors: 32 nCPM
  • megakaryocytes: 31 nCPM

Immune cell

  • basophil: 28 nTPM
  • eosinophil: 15 nTPM
  • NK-cell: 12 nTPM
  • naive CD8 T-cell: 12 nTPM
  • gdT-cell: 12 nTPM
  • memory CD8 T-cell: 11 nTPM

Brain region

  • choroid plexus: 16 nTPM
  • thalamus: 6.7 nTPM
  • pons: 5.8 nTPM
  • medulla oblongata: 5.7 nTPM
  • white matter: 5.6 nTPM
  • hypothalamus: 5.5 nTPM

Genetic constraint and essentialitygnomAD · DepMap

Does the body need this protein intact? Low LOEUF or a strong DepMap dependency means loss or blockade of the protein is likely to be felt.

gnomAD LOEUF (loss-of-function intolerance)
0.26
gnomAD pLI
0.99
gnomAD missense Z
1.35
DepMap mean gene effect
0.05
DepMap dependency class
none

Cancer expressionTCGA

Across TCGA tumor cohorts, this protein is over-expressed in roughly 5% of surveyed tumor types (aggregate summary; per-cohort expression, alteration, and survival load in the interactive view).

OntologyGO

Biological processes

Molecular functions

Cellular components

Protein domainsUniProt · Pfam · InterPro

KeywordsUniProt

InteractionsUniProt · HPA

Protein binding partners of ATG4A in the human serome: UniProt-annotated complex subunits plus reported interactors. Each links to its own Seroatlas record.

Antibody and autoantibody relevanceSeroatlas analysis

Seroatlas reads ATG4A as an antibody target. Whether an autoantibody or antibody against ATG4A could matter depends on whether native ATG4A is physically reachable, whether the body needs it intact, and whether it acts in a disease-relevant tissue.

ATG4A is annotated as predominantly intracellular. Intracellular proteins are common autoantibody markers, becoming visible to the immune system after cell injury or altered processing, but are usually markers of disease rather than direct drivers.

Annotation status

The present source text does not explicitly label ATG4A as an autoantigen. Seroatlas presents hypothesis context only and does not manufacture a known-serology claim.

Canonical record: https://seroatlas.com/gene/ATG4A. Study-independent annotations aggregated from UniProt, Human Protein Atlas, PubMed, IEDB, Pfam, InterPro, Gene Ontology, AlphaFold, gnomAD, DepMap, ClinVar, TCGA. Catalog release seroatlas-reviewed-human-uniprot-20260313.

Seroatlas is the reference for exploring autoantibody and antibody serology at the human-protein level: the autoreactome and human serome, multiplex serology (HuProt, HuScan, VirScan, PhIP-Seq).

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