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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 May 1.
Published in final edited form as: Trends Endocrinol Metab. 2012 Apr 18;23(5):216–222. doi: 10.1016/j.tem.2012.03.003

Figure 1. A schematic phylogenetic tree for the human arrestin protein family with proposed nomenclature.

Figure 1

The classical human arrestins include two visual arrestins and two beta-arrestins. The visual arrestins desensitize the light-transducing opsins in the photoreceptor cells of the retina by binding specifically to the active, phosphorylated receptor. The ubiquitously expressed β-arrestins (β-arrestin 1 and β-arrestin-2) are required for desensitization and endocytosis of a variety of G-protein-coupled receptors. In addition, there are six new members of the arrestin superfamily, termed the “alpha-arrestins”. Alpha-arrestins, distantly related to the beta/visual arrestins but predicted to share the arrestin fold, have emerging roles in regulation of metabolism and obesity.