title: BEN: a novel domain in chromatin factors and DNA viral proteins.
abstract: We report a previously uncharacterized alpha-helical module, the BEN domain, in diverse animal proteins such as BANP/SMAR1, NAC1 and the Drosophila mod(mdg4) isoform C, in the chordopoxvirus virosomal protein E5R and in several proteins of polydnaviruses. Contextual analysis suggests that the BEN domain mediates protein-DNA and protein-protein interactions during chromatin organization and transcription. The presence of BEN domains in a poxviral early virosomal protein and in polydnaviral proteins also suggests a possible role for them in organization of viral DNA during replication or transcription.
authors.affiliation: National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20894, USA.
authors.forename: Saraswathi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Abhiman
authors.forename: Lakshminarayan M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Iyer
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Aravind
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D002843:Chromatin / Q000378:metabolism*; D002868:Chromosomal Proteins, Non-Histone / Q000737:chemistry*; D004267:DNA Viruses / Q000737:chemistry*; D029721:Drosophila Proteins / Q000737:chemistry; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D014764:Viral Proteins / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D002843:Chromatin; D002868:Chromosomal Proteins, Non-Histone; D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D014764:Viral Proteins