Hindawi Publishing Corporation BioMed Research International Volume 2016, Article ID 6786245, 11 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2016/6786245 Review Article ABC Transporter Subfamily D: Distinct Differences in Behavior between ABCD1–3 and ABCD4 in Subcellular Localization, Function, and Human Disease Kosuke Kawaguchi and Masashi Morita Department of Biological Chemistry, Graduate School of Medicine and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Toyama, 2630 Sugitani, Toyama 930-0194, Japan Correspondence should be addressed to Kosuke Kawaguchi;
[email protected] Received 24 June 2016; Accepted 29 August 2016 Academic Editor: Hiroshi Nakagawa Copyright © 2016 K. Kawaguchi and M. Morita. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters are one of the largest families of membrane-bound proteins and transport a wide variety of substrates across both extra- and intracellular membranes. They play a critical role in maintaining cellular homeostasis. To date, four ABC transporters belonging to subfamily D have been identified. ABCD1–3 and ABCD4 are localized to peroxisomes and lysosomes, respectively. ABCD1 and ABCD2 are involved in the transport of long and very long chain fatty acids (VLCFA) or their CoA-derivatives into peroxisomes with different substrate specificities, while ABCD3 is involved in the transport of branched chain acyl-CoA into peroxisomes. On the other hand, ABCD4 is deduced to take part in the transport of vitamin B12 from lysosomes into the cytosol. It is well known that the dysfunction of ABCD1 results in X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy, a severe neurodegenerative disease.