Seroatlas · Human Serome Atlas

ATG4C

Cysteine protease ATG4C

Also known as: APG4C, ATG4C_HUMAN, AUTL1, AUTL3, FLJ14867

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

Protein identityUniProt · HPA

UniProt accession
Q96DT6
Gene
ATG4C
Ensembl
ENSG00000125703
Chromosome
1
Canonical length
458 aa
Protein class
Enzymes, Predicted intracellular proteins
Subcellular location
Nucleoplasm,Cytosol

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. Alternate transcriptional splice variants, encoding the same protein, have been characterized. [provided by RefSeq, Jul 2008]

Canonical amino-acid sequenceUniProt

458 residues, UniProt reviewed canonical sequence.

>Q96DT6|ATG4C
     1  MEATGTDEVD KLKTKFISAW NNMKYSWVLK TKTYFSRNSP VLLLGKCYHF KYEDEDKTLP
    61  AESGCTIEDH VIAGNVEEFR KDFISRIWLT YREEFPQIEG SALTTDCGWG CTLRTGQMLL
   121  AQGLILHFLG RAWTWPDALN IENSDSESWT SHTVKKFTAS FEASLSGERE FKTPTISLKE
   181  TIGKYSDDHE MRNEVYHRKI ISWFGDSPLA LFGLHQLIEY GKKSGKKAGD WYGPAVVAHI
   241  LRKAVEEARH PDLQGITIYV AQDCTVYNSD VIDKQSASMT SDNADDKAVI ILVPVRLGGE
   301  RTNTDYLEFV KGILSLEYCV GIIGGKPKQS YYFAGFQDDS LIYMDPHYCQ SFVDVSIKDF
   361  PLETFHCPSP KKMSFRKMDP SCTIGFYCRN VQDFKRASEE ITKMLKFSSK EKYPLFTFVN
   421  GHSRDYDFTS TTTNEEDLFS EDEKKQLKRF STEEFVLL

LocalizationUniProt · AlphaFold · HPA

Whether an antibody against ATG4C 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
16 nTPM

Expression across tissuesHPA

Tissue

  • spinal cord: 16 nTPM
  • midbrain: 14 nTPM
  • hippocampal formation: 13 nTPM
  • cerebral cortex: 13 nTPM
  • thymus: 13 nTPM
  • lymph node: 13 nTPM

Single-cell type

  • oligodendrocytes: 482 nCPM
  • retinal pigment epithelial cells: 303 nCPM
  • microglia: 177 nCPM
  • astrocytes: 87 nCPM
  • hofbauer cells: 73 nCPM
  • macrophages: 71 nCPM

Immune cell

  • memory B-cell: 35 nTPM
  • basophil: 33 nTPM
  • myeloid DC: 32 nTPM
  • naive B-cell: 31 nTPM
  • plasmacytoid DC: 19 nTPM
  • classical monocyte: 18 nTPM

Brain region

  • white matter: 132 nTPM
  • basal ganglia: 92 nTPM
  • midbrain: 70 nTPM
  • medulla oblongata: 68 nTPM
  • pons: 68 nTPM
  • thalamus: 63 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)
1.41
gnomAD pLI
0
gnomAD missense Z
-0.44
DepMap mean gene effect
-0.07
DepMap dependency class
selective

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

Antibody and autoantibody relevanceSeroatlas analysis

Seroatlas reads ATG4C as an antibody target. Whether an autoantibody or antibody against ATG4C could matter depends on whether native ATG4C is physically reachable, whether the body needs it intact, and whether it acts in a disease-relevant tissue.

ATG4C 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 ATG4C as an autoantigen. Seroatlas presents hypothesis context only and does not manufacture a known-serology claim.

Canonical record: https://seroatlas.com/gene/ATG4C. 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).

© 2026 · Seroatlas, Discover Oregon LLC · Terms of use

Loading the interactive Seroatlas protein explorer...