title: Catalytic center quest: comparison of transposases belonging to the Tn3 family reveals an invariant triad of acidic amino acid residues.
abstract: Amino acid sequence comparison of transposases belonging to the Tn3 family demonstrates that most of them cluster around three well known transposons, Tn21, Tn3, and Tn917. Eleven amino acid residues, including a triad of acidic residues, are invariant in the COOH-terminal third of the transposase protein while only five residues are invariant in the rest of the protein. We suggest that the invariant triad of Asp689, Asp765, Glu895 (numbering as in Tn3) may correspond to the D-D-35-E motif previously implicated in the catalytic performance of numerous transposases.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Molecular Genetics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow.
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Yurieva
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Nikiforov
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001224:Aspartic Acid / Q000737:chemistry; D001665:Binding Sites; D002384:Catalysis; D017124:Conserved Sequence; D004254:DNA Nucleotidyltransferases / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D004251:DNA Transposable Elements; D016208:Databases, Factual; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D018698:Glutamic Acid / Q000737:chemistry; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D019895:Transposases
chemical_list: D004251:DNA Transposable Elements; D001224:Aspartic Acid; D018698:Glutamic Acid; D004254:DNA Nucleotidyltransferases; D019895:Transposases