Background of the antigen
Schlafen family members are preferentially expressed in lymphoid tissues and are differentially regulated during thymocyte maturation. Schlafen proteins function as suppressors of cell growth and are thought to play a role in the maintenance of T cell quiescence. The prototype member of the Schlafen family, Slfn1, is transcriptionally unregulated during thymocyte positive selection, and the induction of Slfn1 induces a G0/G1 arrest, suggesting that Slfn1 participates in the regulation of cell cycle and potentially acts as a determining factor for apoptosis. These proteins all contain a largely conserved core domain within the center of the sequence, and yet they are substantially diversified at the N terminus. Slfn14 (Schlafen family member 14) is a 912 amino acid protein belonging to the Schlafen family. Slfn14 exists as two alternatively spliced isoforms and is encoded by a gene mapping to human chromosome 17q12.
