Characterization of two splice variants of human organic anion transporting polypeptide 3A1 isolated from human brain.

In the present study we isolated two splice variants of organic anion transporting polypeptide 3A1 (OATP3A1_v1 and OATP3A1_v2) from human brain. OATP3A1_v2 lacks 18 amino acids (aa) at the COOH-terminal end (692 aa) but is otherwise similar in sequence to OATP3A1_v1 (710 aa). OATP3A1_v1 exhibits a wide tissue distribution, with expression in testis, various brain regions, heart, lung, spleen, peripheral blood leukocytes, and thyroid gland, whereas OATP3A1_v2 is predominantly expressed in testis and brain.