Affinage

KNCN

Kinocilin · UniProt A6PVL3

Length
124 aa
Mass
12.8 kDa
Annotated
2026-06-10
29 papers in source corpus 1 papers cited in narrative 1 extracted findings
Cross-family judge vs UniProt: Affinage preferred faithfulness: 1/1 claims corpus-supported (100%)

Mechanistic narrative

Synthesis pass · prose summary of the discoveries below

KNCN (kinocilin) is a protein enriched in inner ear hair cells whose functional role remains largely uncharacterized. CRISPR/Cas9 knockout mice lack hearing loss and show intact inner ear and hair cell structure with normal mechanotransduction in cochlear outer hair cells, establishing that KNCN is dispensable for kinocilium-oriented hair bundle development and mechanotransduction in cochlear hair cells (PMID:30254566). Beyond this negative in vivo result, no molecular activity, binding partner, or alternative function has been experimentally established in the available corpus.

Mechanistic history

Synthesis pass · year-by-year structured walk · 1 step
  1. 2018 Medium

    Whether KNCN is required for hair bundle morphogenesis and hearing was unknown; targeted deletion answered this by showing the gene is dispensable for cochlear hair cell development and function.

    Evidence CRISPR/Cas9 knockout mouse assessed by audiometry, histology, and mechanotransduction electrophysiology

    PMID:30254566

    Open questions at the time
    • Does not identify any molecular activity or binding partner of KNCN
    • Possible functional redundancy or vestibular/non-cochlear roles not excluded
    • Subcellular localization to the kinocilium not directly tested in this knockout study

Open questions

Synthesis pass · forward-looking unresolved questions
  • The molecular function, interaction partners, and the biological reason for KNCN enrichment in hair cells remain unknown.
  • No biochemical activity assigned
  • No physical partners identified
  • No phenotype establishing a required cellular role

Mechanism profile

Synthesis pass · controlled-vocabulary classification · explore literature graph →
No controlled-vocabulary terms were assigned to this entry.

Evidence

Reading pass · 1 per-paper finding extracted from the source corpus
Year Finding Method Journal Conf PMIDs
2018 Kncn knockout mice generated by CRISPR/Cas9 show no hearing loss, intact inner ear and hair cell structure, and no deficit in mechanotransduction (MET) in cochlear outer hair cells, demonstrating that KNCN is not essential for kinocilium-oriented hair bundle development or mechanotransduction in cochlear hair cells. CRISPR/Cas9 knockout mouse, audiometry, histology, mechanotransduction electrophysiology Frontiers in molecular neuroscience Medium 30254566

Source papers

Stage 0 corpus · 29 papers · ranked by NIH iCite citations
Year Title Journal Citations PMID
1989 Complete amino acid sequence of an immunomodulatory protein, ling zhi-8 (LZ-8). An immunomodulator from a fungus, Ganoderma lucidium, having similarity to immunoglobulin variable regions. The Journal of biological chemistry 76 2570780
1998 The evolution of obligate pollination mutualisms: senita cactus and senita moth. Oecologia 75 28307780
1997 Effects of the immunosuppressive drugs CsA and FK506 on intracellular signalling and gene regulation. Immunobiology 70 9442391
2008 Multilocus sequence typing and phylogenetic analyses of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Isolates from the ocean. Applied and environmental microbiology 45 18757570
1981 Catabolism of globin-haptoglobin in liver cells after intravenous administration of hemoglobin-haptoglobin to rats. The Journal of biological chemistry 43 7298660
2004 PreDs: a server for predicting dsDNA-binding site on protein molecular surfaces. Bioinformatics (Oxford, England) 37 15613393
2003 Purification and characterization of the MQH2:NO oxidoreductase from the hyperthermophilic archaeon Pyrobaculum aerophilum. The Journal of biological chemistry 35 12799376
1991 Molecular cloning of a cDNA and a gene encoding an immunomodulatory protein, Ling Zhi-8, from a fungus, Ganoderma lucidum. The Journal of biological chemistry 34 1990000
2019 Pterostilbene, An Active Constituent of Blueberries, Suppresses Proliferation Potential of Human Cholangiocarcinoma via Enhancing the Autophagic Flux. Frontiers in pharmacology 29 31695612
2008 HE6/GPR64 adhesion receptor co-localizes with apical and subapical F-actin scaffold in male excurrent duct epithelia. Reproduction (Cambridge, England) 25 18469038
1988 Effect of chronic ethanol treatment under partial catalase inhibition on the activity of enzymes related to peroxide metabolism in rat liver and heart. The International journal of biochemistry 25 3169364
1988 Intrahepatocellular site of the catabolism of heme and globin moiety of hemoglobin-haptoglobin after intravenous administration to rats. The Journal of biological chemistry 19 3182780
2015 Characterization of Pterocarpus erinaceus kino extract and its gamma-secretase inhibitory properties. Journal of ethnopharmacology 11 25639816
2011 Sampling-based exploration of folded state of a protein under kinematic and geometric constraints. Proteins 10 21971749
2015 Nullspace Sampling with Holonomic Constraints Reveals Molecular Mechanisms of Protein Gαs. PLoS computational biology 8 26218073
2018 Deletion of Kncn Does Not Affect Kinocilium and Stereocilia Bundle Morphogenesis and Mechanotransduction in Cochlear Hair Cells. Frontiers in molecular neuroscience 7 30254566
2020 Druggable exosites of the human kino-pocketome. Journal of computer-aided molecular design 6 31925639
2017 Frustration-guided motion planning reveals conformational transitions in proteins. Proteins 6 28597937
2025 Colorectal Tumors in Diverse Patient Populations Feature a Spectrum of Somatic Mutational Profiles. Cancer research 4 40126181
2024 A novel enzyme-linked ligand-sorbent assay (ELLSA) to screening pulmonary tuberculosis: a retrospective cross-sectional study. Microbes and infection 3 38537770
2020 Cannonball jellyfish digestion: an insight into the lipolytic enzymes of the digestive system. PeerJ 3 33194347
2025 Genome-Wide Association Study and Rare Variant Association Studies of Strabismus in the All of Us Research Program. Ophthalmology science 1 40837069
2024 Spectrum of somatic mutational features of colorectal tumors in ancestrally diverse populations. medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences 1 38558992
2026 Anti-inflammatory and cytoregulatory effects of Corymbia terminalis kino extracts on human keratinocytes. International journal of environmental health research 0 41525165
2025 Rare Variants in Antisense lncRNA-Protein Coding Gene Overlap Regions Contribute to Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences 0 40666340
2025 Flavonoids From Corymbia terminalis Kino With Antimicrobial and Anti-Inflammatory Activities. Chemistry & biodiversity 0 41406052
2025 Rare Variants in Antisense Long Noncoding RNA-Protein-Coding Gene Overlap Regions Contribute to Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Biological psychiatry global open science 0 41675975
2023 Genome-wide DNA methylation analysis in schizophrenia with tardive dyskinesia: a preliminary study. Genes & genomics 0 37414911
1997 [Diagnostic problems associated with colorectal cancer]. Nihon Geka Gakkai zasshi 0 9101542

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