Wolberger C
Department of Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry, John Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA.
Curr Opin Struct Biol. 1996 Feb;6(1):62-8. doi: 10.1016/s0959-440x(96)80096-0.
Homeodomain proteins play key roles in development and gene regulation in eukaryotes. Past structural studies have focused on the binding of monomeric homeodomains to DNA, but two recent structures have revealed how homeodomains bind DNA as multimers. The structures of the Drosophila Paired homodimer and the yeast a1/alpha2 heterodimer bound to DNA, along with a high-resolution study of a Drosophila eve-DNA complex, have deepened our understanding of how homeodomains locate their DNA targets.
同源域蛋白在真核生物的发育和基因调控中发挥着关键作用。过去的结构研究主要集中在单体同源域与DNA的结合上，但最近的两个结构揭示了同源域如何以多聚体形式结合DNA。果蝇配对同源二聚体和与DNA结合的酵母a1/α2异源二聚体的结构，以及对果蝇eve-DNA复合物的高分辨率研究，加深了我们对同源域如何定位其DNA靶点的理解。
