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ATP-activated oligomerization as a mechanism for apoptosis regulation: Fold and mechanism prediction for CED-4

✍ Scribed by Lukasz Jaroszewski; Leszek Rychlewski; John C. Reed; Adam Godzik


Publisher
John Wiley and Sons
Year
2000
Tongue
English
Weight
300 KB
Volume
39
Category
Article
ISSN
0887-3585

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✦ Synopsis


Fold recognition algorithm FFAS (Rychlewski et al., Protein Sci, 2000;9:232-241) was used to match the nucleotide-binding adaptor shared by APAF-1, certain R gene products and CED-4 (NB-ARC domain) to the structure of the D2 domain of N-ethylemaleimide-Sensitive Fusion Protein and the ␦ subunit of clamp loader of DNA polymerase III. The predicted structure consists of the p-loop ATP-binding domain, followed by two ␣-helical domains that regulate the oligomerization process. This prediction suggests a detailed molecular mechanism for the "induced proximity" hypothesis (Salvesen and Dixit, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 1999;96: 10964 -10967) for CED3/caspase-9 activation by CED4/ APAF-1 complex. According to this model, the ATP binding acts as a trigger in CED-4 oligomerization and the helical domain immediately following the ATP-binding domain provides additional mechanisms for regulation of the oligomerization process. This model explains most of known experimental data about CED-4-mediated caspase activation and, at the same time, suggest experiments that could test this hypothesis.