K Muhammed Jamsheer, Laxmi Ashverya
National Institute of Plant Genome Research, New Delhi, India.
PLoS One. 2014 Jun 5;9(6):e99074. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0099074. eCollection 2014.
Zinc fingers are a ubiquitous class of protein domain with considerable variation in structure and function. Zf-FCS is a highly diverged group of C2-C2 zinc finger which is present in animals, prokaryotes and viruses, but not in plants. In this study we identified that a plant specific domain of unknown function, DUF581 is a zf-FCS type zinc finger. Based on HMM-HMM comparison and signature motif similarity we named this domain as FCS-Like Zinc finger (FLZ) domain. A genome wide survey identified that FLZ domain containing genes are bryophytic in origin and this gene family is expanded in spermatophytes. Expression analysis of selected FLZ gene family members of A. thaliana identified an overlapping expression pattern suggesting a possible redundancy in their function. Unlike the zf-FCS domain, the FLZ domain found to be highly conserved in sequence and structure. Using a combination of bioinformatic and protein-protein interaction tools, we identified that FLZ domain is involved in protein-protein interaction.
锌指是一类普遍存在的蛋白质结构域，其结构和功能具有相当大的变异性。Zf-FCS是一类高度分化的C2-C2锌指，存在于动物、原核生物和病毒中，但不存在于植物中。在本研究中，我们鉴定出一个植物特有的功能未知结构域DUF581是一种zf-FCS型锌指。基于隐马尔可夫模型（HMM）-HMM比较和特征基序相似性，我们将该结构域命名为类FCS锌指（FLZ）结构域。全基因组调查发现，含有FLZ结构域的基因起源于苔藓植物，并且该基因家族在种子植物中得到了扩展。对拟南芥中选定的FLZ基因家族成员的表达分析确定了一种重叠的表达模式，表明它们的功能可能存在冗余。与zf-FCS结构域不同，FLZ结构域在序列和结构上高度保守。通过结合生物信息学和蛋白质-蛋白质相互作用工具，我们确定FLZ结构域参与蛋白质-蛋白质相互作用。
