MHC class I polypeptide-related sequence A

UniProtKB accession:  Q29983

Grouped By:  Matching UniProtKB accession

UniProtKB description:  Widely expressed membrane-bound protein which acts as a ligand to stimulate an activating receptor KLRK1/NKG2D, expressed on the surface of essentially all human natural killer (NK), gammadelta T and CD8 alphabeta T-cells (PubMed:11777960, PubMed:11491531). Up-regulated in stressed conditions, such as viral and bacterial infections or DNA damage response, serves as signal of cellular stress, and engagement of KLRK1/NKG2D by MICA triggers NK-cells resulting in a range of immune effector functions, such as cytotoxicity and cytokine production (PubMed:10426993).