Hirano Tatsuya
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 1 Bungtown Road, Cold Spring Harbor, New York 11724, USA.
Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol. 2006 May;7(5):311-22. doi: 10.1038/nrm1909.
Structural maintenance of chromosomes (SMC) proteins are ubiquitous in organisms from bacteria to humans, and function as core components of the condensin and cohesin complexes in eukaryotes. SMC proteins adopt a V-shaped structure with two long arms, each of which has an ATP-binding head domain at the distal end. It is important to understand how these uniquely designed protein machines interact with DNA strands and how such interactions are modulated by the ATP-binding and -hydrolysis cycle. An emerging idea is that SMC proteins use a diverse array of intramolecular and intermolecular protein-protein interactions to actively fold, tether and manipulate DNA strands.
染色体结构维持（SMC）蛋白在从细菌到人类的生物体中普遍存在，在真核生物中作为凝聚素和黏连蛋白复合物的核心成分发挥作用。SMC蛋白呈V形结构，有两条长臂，每条长臂的远端都有一个ATP结合头部结构域。了解这些独特设计的蛋白质机器如何与DNA链相互作用以及这种相互作用如何被ATP结合和水解循环调节非常重要。一个新出现的观点是，SMC蛋白利用多种分子内和分子间的蛋白质-蛋白质相互作用来主动折叠、束缚和操纵DNA链。
