Seroatlas · Human Serome Atlas

DEFA5

Defensin alpha 5

Also known as: DEF5, DEF5_HUMAN, HD-5

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

Protein identityUniProt · HPA

UniProt accession
Q01523
Gene
DEFA5
Ensembl
ENSG00000164816
Chromosome
8
Canonical length
94 aa
Protein class
Plasma proteins, Predicted secreted proteins
Subcellular location
Vesicles,Midbody
Secretome location
Secreted to digestive system
Quaternary structure
Homotetramer

OverviewNCBI Gene

Defensins are a family of antimicrobial and cytotoxic peptides thought to be involved in host defense. They are abundant in the granules of neutrophils and also found in the epithelia of mucosal surfaces such as those of the intestine, respiratory tract, urinary tract, and vagina. Members of the defensin family are highly similar in protein sequence and distinguished by a conserved cysteine motif. Several of the alpha defensin genes appear to be clustered on chromosome 8. The protein encoded by this gene, defensin, alpha 5, is highly expressed in the secretory granules of Paneth cells of the ileum. [provided by RefSeq, Oct 2014]

Canonical amino-acid sequenceUniProt

94 residues, UniProt reviewed canonical sequence.

>Q01523|DEFA5
     1  MRTIAILAAI LLVALQAQAE SLQERADEAT TQKQSGEDNQ DLAISFAGNG LSALRTSGSQ
    61  ARATCYCRTG RCATRESLSG VCEISGRLYR LCCR

LocalizationUniProt · AlphaFold · HPA

Whether an antibody against DEFA5 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
Secreted
Secreted
Yes
Transmembrane segments
0
Mean surface accessibility (rSASA)
0.57
Highest tissue expression
9,025 nTPM

Expression across tissuesHPA

Tissue

  • small intestine: 9,025 nTPM
  • duodenum: 4,864 nTPM
  • colon: 45 nTPM
  • appendix: 12 nTPM
  • lymph node: 5.6 nTPM
  • endometrium: 3.6 nTPM

Single-cell type

  • paneth cells: 84,213 nCPM
  • goblet cells: 111 nCPM
  • enteric stem cells: 47 nCPM
  • enterocytes: 16 nCPM
  • neuroendocrine cells: 15 nCPM
  • foveolar cells: 3.4 nCPM

Immune cell

  • total PBMC: 0.6 nTPM
  • neutrophil: 0.1 nTPM
  • basophil: 0 nTPM
  • classical monocyte: 0 nTPM
  • eosinophil: 0 nTPM
  • gdT-cell: 0 nTPM

Brain region

  • midbrain: 0.3 nTPM
  • cerebral cortex: 0.2 nTPM
  • hypothalamus: 0.2 nTPM
  • pons: 0.2 nTPM
  • thalamus: 0.2 nTPM
  • amygdala: 0.1 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)
1.97
gnomAD pLI
0
gnomAD missense Z
-1.91
DepMap mean gene effect
0.18
DepMap dependency class
none

Cancer expressionTCGA

Across TCGA tumor cohorts, this protein is over-expressed in roughly 2% 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 DEFA5 as an antibody target. Whether an autoantibody or antibody against DEFA5 could matter depends on whether native DEFA5 is physically reachable, whether the body needs it intact, and whether it acts in a disease-relevant tissue.

DEFA5 is annotated as secreted, so native DEFA5 circulates and is directly accessible to antibodies. Secreted and cell-surface proteins are the autoantibody targets most likely to act like drugs, blocking or depleting the native protein.

Annotation status

The present source text does not explicitly label DEFA5 as an autoantigen. Seroatlas presents hypothesis context only and does not manufacture a known-serology claim.

Canonical record: https://seroatlas.com/gene/DEFA5. 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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