Amino Acid Sequence Patterns Research Articles

Amino acid sequence pattern in the regulatory peptides

The essential properties of the primary structure of regulatory peptides, i.e. amino acid residues and their combinations, which are characteristic of the whole population of regulatory peptides, have been revealed using statistical methodology. These properties are as follows: increased content of certain residues (Gly, Pro, Phe, Arg, Tyr, Met and Trp) as well as an increased rate of occurrence of certain pairs of residue as compared with proteins, a random sequence of residues and "nonregulatory" peptides. By representing regulatory peptides as a sequence of hydrophobic (2 types) and hydrophilic (3 types) segments, the pattern for alternation of these segments in regulatory peptides has been determined. The segments were classified into 5 types according to the peculiarities of mutual localization of hydrophobic and hydrophilic residues within the primary structure of regulatory peptides. As compared with proteins, "nonregulatory" peptides and a random sequence of segments, regulatory peptides were characterized by an increased frequency of 4 particular pairs of segments among 12 theoretically possible pairs. These 4 pairs are fragments of the periodic segment sequence with periods of 4 segments. The revealed pattern indicates that there exists a general principle of the regulatory peptide primary structure organization and possibly a common type of the regulatory peptides flexible peptide chain folding at the ligand-receptor complex formation.

Drosophila has a twitchin/titin-related gene that appears to encode projectin.

The sequences of twitchin and titin identify a superfamily of muscle proteins whose functions are not completely understood. In spite of their shared structural features, twitchin and titin appear to differ in function. Genetic and molecular evidence suggests that twitchin has a regulatory role in muscle contraction, whereas it has been proposed that titin has a structural function. We report here that Drosophila has a single-copy gene containing the two-motif amino acid sequence pattern that characterizes twitchin and titin. This gene appears to encode projectin, a muscle protein that is thought to play a structural role in asynchronous flight muscle but may have a role like that of twitchin in synchronous muscle. Thus Drosophila appears to be a case where the apparently diverged functions of twitchin and titin are encoded by a single gene.

Identification of a major human immunodeficiency virus‐1 reverse transcriptase epitope recognized by mouse CD4+ T lymphocytes

Delineation of major T helper cell recognition sites of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1) proteins represents one important step in the design of an efficient acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) vaccine. Towards this end, we have explored the immunogenicity of HIV-1BRU proteins in the mouse model. Preliminary experiments revealed that inbred mice primed with whole inactivated HIV-1 developed strong CD4+ T cell proliferative responses to a variety of recombinant viral proteins including reverse transcriptase (RT). To characterize further the mouse T cell responses to this protein, several Ad- or Ed-restricted T hybridoma cells (THC) were established from BALB/c or DBA/2 mice. These THC were tested for their capacity to recognize a series of 15-mer synthetic overlapping peptides spanning three segments of HIV-1 RT that had been preselected on the basis of either alpha-helicity, amphipaticity, and/or for containing rare amino acid sequence patterns. Peptides corresponding to a C-terminal region (residues 528-560) of RT were recognized by several of the THC established from RT-primed mice. Furthermore, a non-alpha-helical peptide from this region (A3, 528-543) was capable of priming mice with different H-2 haplotypes for both peptide A3 and native RT CD4+ T cell recognition. In addition to the recently identified RT determinant 203-219 capable of triggering both mouse and human CD8+ CTL, the present results identify a good candidate for an immunodominant RT epitope capable of eliciting RT-specific T helper cell responses.

Identification of new protein kinase-related genes in three herpesviruses, herpes simplex virus, varicella-zoster virus, and Epstein-Barr virus

By using amino acid sequence patterns (motifs) diagnostic of conserved regions within the catalytic domains of protein kinases, homologous open reading frames of three herpesviruses were identified as protein kinase-related genes. The three sequences, herpes simplex virus gene UL13, varicella-zoster virus gene 47, and Epstein-Barr virus gene BGLF4, resemble serine/threonine kinases rather than tyrosine kinases.

Amino acid sequence templates derived from recurrent turn motifs in proteins: critical evaluation of their predictive power.

Amino acid sequence patterns suggested to characterize specific recurrent turn conformation in protein are tested as to their predictive power in a database containing 75 proteins of known structure. Many of these patterns are found to be associated with local structures that differ from the motifs originally used to derive them. It is therefore concluded that, while they could be useful for improving predictions made by other methods, their stand-alone predictive power is poor. The issue of deriving and validating consensus sequence patterns for use in protein structure prediction is raised.

Identification of predictive sequence motifs limited by protein structure data base size.

Associations between short amino acid sequence patterns and protein secondary structure classes can be found by searching a data base of known protein structures. Analysis of these associations suggests that secondary structure of proteins can be determined locally by sequence motifs of high predictive value, but at present our ability to find these motifs is limited by the size of the available data bases.

Rapid emergence of novel antigenic and genetic variants of equine infectious anemia virus during persistent infection.

Previous results from our laboratory have demonstrated that equine infectious anemia virus displays structural variations in its surface glycoproteins and RNA genome during passage and chronic infections in experimentally infected Shetland ponies (Montelaro et al., J. Biol. Chem. 259:10539-10544, 1984; Payne et al., J. Gen. Virol. 65:1395-1399, 1984). The present study was undertaken to obtain an antigenic and biochemical characterization of equine infectious anemia virus isolates recovered from an experimentally infected pony during sequential disease episodes, each separated by intervals of only 4 to 8 weeks. The virus isolates could be distinguished antigenically by neutralization assays with serum from the infected pony and by Western blot analysis with a monoclonal antibody against the major surface glycoprotein gp90, thus demonstrating that novel antigenic variants of equine infectious anemia virus predominate during each clinical episode. The respective virion glycoproteins displayed different electrophoretic mobilities on sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gels, indicating structural variation. Tryptic peptide and glycopeptide maps of the viral proteins of each virus isolate revealed biochemical alterations involving amino acid sequence and glycosylation patterns in the virion surface glycoproteins gp90 and gp45. In contrast, no structural variation was observed in the internal viral proteins pp15, p26, and p9 from any of the four virus isolates. Oligonucleotide mapping experiments revealed similar but unique RNase T1-resistant oligonucleotide fingerprints of the RNA genomes of each of the virus isolates. Localization of altered oligonucleotides for one virus isolate placed two of three unique oligonucleotides within the predicted env gene region of the genome, perhaps correlating with the structural variation observed in the envelope glycoproteins. Thus these results support the concept that equine infectious anemia virus is indeed capable of relatively rapid genomic variations during replication, some of which result in altered glycoprotein structures and antigenic variants which are responsible for the unique periodic disease nature observed in persistently infected animals. The findings of envelope specific differences in isolates of visna virus and of human T-cell lymphotropic virus III (acquired immune deficiency syndrome-related virus) suggest that this variation may be a common characteristic of the subfamily Lentivirinae.

Turn prediction in proteins using a pattern-matching approach.

We extend the use of amino acid sequence patterns [Cohen, F.E., Abarbanel, R. M., Kuntz, I. D., & Fletterick, R. J. (1983) Biochemistry 22, 4894-4904] to the identification of turns in globular proteins. The approach uses a conservative strategy, combined with a hierarchical search (strongest patterns first) and length-dependent masking, to achieve high accuracy (95%) on a test set of proteins of known structure. Applying the same procedure to homologous families gives a 90% success rate. Straightforward changes are suggested to improve the predictive power. The computer program, written in Lisp, provides a general pattern-recognition language well suited for a number of investigations of protein and nucleic acid sequences.

Analysis of periodic patterns in amino acid sequences: collagen.

AbstractMethods are given for analyzing regularly spaced patterns of amino acids in proteins and applied to the α1 chain of collagen. Fourier methods use the transform of the sequence either embedded in a very long array or folded onto a fundamental base period. Filtering through a moveable “window” of definite width is used to display almost regular features at any chosen frequency. A pattern detection method is described for patterns of general shape. Collagen has statistically significant periodicities at fractions of the stagger distance D = 670 Å. Hydrophobic groups show strong orders of 5, 6, 11; proline 5; charged groups 6, 18, 21. Charged residues mostly occur as neutral pairs. Their distribution has strong 6th and 21st orders which also appear in the changes which are paired at multiples of D. Charge pairs separated by (D + 3) residues show a strong 5D/89 pattern and may form a system of salt bridges across the fibril. There is no sign of any regular pattern of amino acids over the triple helix with a period close to its natural pitch of 30 residues. Supercoiled models with six relative turns of the contact edge between paired triple‐helical strands are examined.

Direct evidence for a correlation between amino acid sequence and cross striation pattern of collagen

Direct evidence for a correlation between amino acid sequence and cross striation pattern of collagen