thumb|Secondary (A), Tertiary (B), and Quaternary (C) depictions of an aquaporin channel
thumb|Secondary (A), Tertiary (B), and Quaternary (C) depictions of an aquaporin channel
Aquaporin-4, also known as AQP-4, is a water channel protein encoded by the AQP4 gene in humans. AQP-4 belongs to the aquaporin family of integral membrane proteins that conduct water through the cell membrane. A limited number of aquaporins are found within the central nervous system (CNS): AQP1, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, and 11, but more exclusive representation of AQP1, 4, and 9 are found in the brain and spinal cord. AQP4 shows the largest presence in the cerebellum and spinal cord grey matter. In the CNS, AQP4 is the most prevalent aquaporin channel, specifically located at the perimicrovessel astrocyte foot processes, glia limitans, and ependyma. In addition, this channel is commonly found facilitating water movement near cerebrospinal fluid and vasculature.
Discovered by embedding cosine similarity (sentence-transformers MiniLM, 384-dim).