Clathrin, Light Polypeptide B (CLTB)

Clathrin is the main structural component of the lattice covering the cytoplasmic face of the coated pits and coated vesicles in which specific macromolecules are entrapped in the process of receptor-mediated endocytosis. Clathrin is a large, soluble protein composed of heavy chains (molecular size, about 192 kD) and light chains (molecular size, about 32 to 38 kD). Two major classes of clathrin light chains, referred to as LCA (encoded by the CLTA gene) and LCB (encoded by CTLB), have been identified.

By Southern blot analysis carried out on genomic DNA extracted from a panel of mouse-human somatic cell hybrids and by isotopic in situ hybridization, Ponnambalam et al. (1994) assigned the CLTB gene to human 4q2-q3.