| Description | Pentaxins (or pentraxins) [ , ] are a family of proteins which show, under electron microscopy, a discoid arrangement of five noncovalently bound subunits. Proteins known to belong to this family are:C-reactive protein (CRP), a protein which, in mammals, is expressed during acute phase response to tissue injury or inflammation. CRP displays several functions associated with host defense: it promotes agglutination, bacterial capsular swelling, phagocytosis and complement fixation through its calcium-dependent binding to phosphorylcholine. CRPs have also been sequenced in an invertebrate, the Atlantic horseshoe crab, where they are a normal constituent of the hemolymph.Serum Amyloid P-component (SAP), a precursor of amyloid component P which is found in basement membrane and is associated with amyloid deposits.Hamster female protein (FP), a plasma protein whose concentration is altered by sex steroids and stimuli that elicit an acute phase response.A number of proteins, whose function is not yet clear, contain a C-terminal pentaxin-like domain. These proteins are:Human PTX3 (or TSG-14). PTX3 is a cytokine-induced protein.Guinea pig apexin [ ], a sperm acrosomal protein. Apexin seems to be the ortholog of human neuronal pentraxin II (gene NPTX2) [].Rat neuronal pentaxin I [ ].The sequences of the different members of this family are quite conserved. This entry represents a six residue pattern which includes a cysteine known to be involved in a disulfide bridge in CRPs and SAP. | Name | Pentaxin, conserved site |
| Short Name | Pentaxin_CS | Type | Conserved_site |
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