60S ribosomal protein L41 is a protein encoded by the RPL41 gene, also known as HG12 and large eukaryotic ribosomal subunit protein eL41. The gene family HGNC is L ribosomal proteins. The protein itself is also described as P62945-RL41_HUMAN on the GeneCards database. This RPL41 gene is located on chromosome 12.
Ribosomes, the organelles that catalyze protein synthesis, consist of a small 40S subunit and a large 60S subunit. Together these subunits are composed of 4 RNA species and approximately 80 structurally distinct proteins. The 60S subunit is a chain of only 25 amino acids and contains an alpha helix and a turn. This is significantly smaller than most ribosomal sequences of around 80 amino acids. The alpha helix is from amino acid three to fourteen, and the turn is from position fifteen to eighteen. Of these 25 amino acids, most of them are arginine or lysine. This gene encodes a ribosomal protein that is a component of the 60S subunit. The protein, which shares sequence similarity with the yeast ribosomal protein YL41, belongs to the L41E family of ribosomal proteins. It is located in the cytoplasm. The gene is made up of three introns in between four exons. Exon 1 is 36 nucleotides long, exon 2 is 25 nucleotides long, exon 3 is 23 nt, and exon 4 is 346 nt. Intron 1 is 115 nucleotides, intron 2 is 389 nt, and intron 3 is 275 nt. Differently from the yeast gene, the introns were only observed in the human gene, although the exons exhibit 99.5% of sequence identity.
