Putative Arabidopsis homologues of metazoan coiled-coil cytoskeletal proteins

Cell Biol Int. 2011 Aug;35(8):767-74. doi: 10.1042/CBI20100719.

Abstract

The Arabidopsis thaliana genome encodes about 386 proteins with coiled-coil domains of at least 50 amino acids in length. In mammalian systems, many coiled-coil proteins are part of various cytoskeletal networks including intermediate filament protein, actin-binding proteins and MAP (microtubule-associated proteins). Immunological evidence suggests that some of these cytoskeletal proteins, such as lamins, keratins and tropomyosins, may be conserved in Arabidopsis. However, coiled-coil proteins are of low complexity, and thus, traditional sequence comparison algorithms, such as BLAST may not detect homologies. Here, we use the PROPSEARCH algorithm to detect putative coiled-coil cytoskeletal protein homologues in Arabidopsis. This approach reveals putative intermediate filament protein homologues of filensin, lamin and keratin; putative actin-binding homologues of ERM (ezrin/radixin/moesin), periplakin, utrophin, tropomyosin and paramyosin, and putative MAP homologues of restin/CLIP-170 (cytoplasmic linker protein-170). We suggest that the AtFPP (Arabiopsis thaliana filament-like plant protein) and AtMAP70 (Arabidopsis microtubule-associated protein 70) families of coiled-coil proteins may, in fact, be related to lamins and function as intermediate filament proteins.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Arabidopsis / chemistry*
  • Cytoskeletal Proteins / chemistry*
  • Databases, Protein
  • Intermediate Filament Proteins / chemistry*
  • Keratins
  • Lamins
  • Microfilament Proteins / chemistry*
  • Microtubule-Associated Proteins / chemistry*
  • Protein Structure, Secondary
  • Tropomyosin

Substances

  • Cytoskeletal Proteins
  • Intermediate Filament Proteins
  • Lamins
  • Microfilament Proteins
  • Microtubule-Associated Proteins
  • Tropomyosin
  • Keratins