Conformational flexibility may explain multiple cellular roles of PEST motifs.
PEST sequences are one of the major motifs that serve as signal for the protein degradation and are also involved in various cellular processes such as phosphorylation and protein-protein interaction. In our earlier study, we found that these motifs contribute largely to eukaryotic protein disorder. This observation led us to evaluate their conformational variability in the nonredundant Protein Data Bank (PDB) structures. For this purpose, crystallographic temperature factors, structural alignment of multiple NMR models, and dihedral angle order parameters have been used in this study. The study has revealed the hypermobility of PEST motifs as compared to other regions of the protein. Conformational flexibility may allow them to participate in number of molecular interactions under different conditions. This analysis may explain the role of protein backbone flexibility in bringing about multiple cellular roles of PEST motifs.
G. N. Ramachandran Knowledge Center for Genome Informatics, Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, CSIR, Delhi, India.
Kuljeet Singh
KS
Sandhu
Debasis
D
Dash
D020816:Amino Acid Motifs; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D018360:Crystallography, X-Ray; D019906:Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Biomolecular; D018583:Pliability; D011487:Protein Conformation; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism*
D011506:Proteins