Structural characterization of plant defensin protein superfamily

Mol Biol Rep. 2012 Apr;39(4):4461-9. doi: 10.1007/s11033-011-1235-y. Epub 2011 Sep 25.

Abstract

Plant defensins represent a major innate immune protein superfamily with strong inhibitory effects on infectious diseases of humans, antifungal/antibacterial activities, proteinase and insect amylase inhibitory activities. They are generally defined by their conserved cysteine scaffold with α-helix and triple strand anti parallel β-sheet connected to the scaffold. With the genome of more plant species being fully sequenced, significant information about newly sequenced defensin proteins has been revealed. In this paper, we identify members of defensin protein families across plant species and use protein-modeling-based structural reconstitution to reveal specific three dimensional hidden features of plant defensins mediating defense responses and other interesting biological activities in plants. Our data revealed that plant defensins are structurally similar to their insect counterparts despite the low amino acid sequence similarity between these two organisms. The molecular and structural relationship among plant defensins and defensins from other species is discussed.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Anti-Infective Agents / chemistry
  • Conserved Sequence / genetics
  • Defensins / chemistry*
  • Defensins / genetics
  • Evolution, Molecular
  • Models, Molecular
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Multigene Family*
  • Phylogeny
  • Plant Proteins / chemistry*
  • Plant Proteins / genetics
  • Plants / metabolism*
  • Protein Structure, Secondary
  • Sequence Homology, Amino Acid

Substances

  • Anti-Infective Agents
  • Defensins
  • Plant Proteins