ABCA8 Background Information ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters are an evolutionarily conserved family of proteins that catalyze the transport of molecules across extracellular and intracellular membranes by harnessing the energy of ATP hydrolysis. ABCA8 (ATP-binding cassette, sub-family A (ABC1), member 8) is a 1,581 amino acid multi-pass membrane protein that contains two ABC transporter domains and belongs to the ABC transporter family. Expressed in a variety of tissues with particularly high expression in liver, heart and skeletal muscle, ABCA8 functions as an ATP-dependent lipophilic drug transporter that exists as multiple alternatively spliced isoforms. The gene encoding ABCA8 maps to human chromosome 17, which comprises over 2.5% of the human genome and encodes over 1,200 genes.
