title: The longevity assurance homologue of yeast lag1 (Lass) gene family (review).
abstract: The Lass gene family contains a group of highly conserved genes that are found in eukaryotic species. The founding member, lag1, was discovered in a screen for yeast longevity genes. Subsequently, lag1 homologs were discovered in other organisms including six mammalian paralogs. All Lass genes encode a highly conserved Lag1 domain and many also have an additional Hox domain. Lass proteins are ceramide synthases and therefore are critical for ceramide biosynthesis. Ceramide synthase is also a critical enzyme in the sphingolipid biosynthetic pathway. As ceramide and sphingolipids are key intermediates in diverse cellular processes such as cell growth, apoptosis, and stress response and may also play a role in cancer development, the function of Lass proteins is of great interest. In this review, we summarize the state of knowledge regarding Lass protein structure, biological function, and their emerging role in cancer development.
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine I, Johannes Gutenberg University, 55101 Mainz, Germany. teufel@uni-mainz.de
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Teufel
authors.forename: Thorsten
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Maass
authors.forename: Peter R
authors.initials: PR
authors.lastname: Galle
authors.forename: Nasir
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Malik
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D002518:Ceramides / Q000096:biosynthesis; D006801:Humans; D008565:Membrane Proteins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D008954:Models, Biological; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism; D010088:Oxidoreductases / Q000378:metabolism; D051049:Sphingosine N-Acyltransferase; D013329:Structure-Activity Relationship
chemical_list: D002518:Ceramides; D008565:Membrane Proteins; D010088:Oxidoreductases; C108138:dihydroceramide desaturase; C493790:CERS1 protein, human; D051049:Sphingosine N-Acyltransferase