[The research progress of one member of the EF-hand superfamily--troponin C].
The EF-hand superfamily is a large group of proteins which contain EF-hand motif formed by helix-loop-helix. These proteins always have the ability of binding metal ions or forming dimmers. Troponin C, known as having ability of binding Ca2+, is one member of the EF-hand superfamily. Troponin C interacts with troponin I and troponin T, forming a troponin complex which takes part in regulating muscle contraction. It is interesting that troponin C was also found in non-muscular tissue, and its function was proved to be different from that of troponin C found in muscular tissue. To date, a lot of researches about troponin C have been carried out widely. However, most of them focused on vertebrate, seldom were done on invertebrate. Our group carried out a research on troponin C from silkworm, a model organism of insects, aiming to clarify the structure and function of silkworm troponin C. Here, we mainly discuss the characters of the EF-hand superfamily and the classification, structure and function of troponin C . We also introduced our work about silkworm troponin C briefly, hoping of making a little contribution to the research of invertebrate troponin C.
Chen
Jian-Qing
JQ
Institute of Biochemistry, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou 310018, China.
Zhang
Yao-Zhou
YZ
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001665:Binding Sites / Q000235:genetics; D012831:Bombyx / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D002118:Calcium / Q000378:metabolism*; D020832:EF Hand Motifs; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D011485:Protein Binding; D019209:Troponin C / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*
D019209:Troponin C; D002118:Calcium