Skip Navigation

Nucleic Acids Research 2006 34(1):305-312; doi:10.1093/nar/gkj424
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow Print PDF (344K) Freely available
Right arrow Screen PDF (353K) Freely available
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Search for citing articles in:
ISI Web of Science (14)
Right arrow Commercial Re-use Guidelines
for Open Access NAR Content
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Haynes, C.
Right arrow Articles by Iakoucheva, L. M.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Haynes, C.
Right arrow Articles by Iakoucheva, L. M.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

Published online 10 January 2006

© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved
The online version of this article has been published under an open access model. Users are entitled to use, reproduce, disseminate, or display the open access version of this article for non-commercial purposes provided that: the original authorship is properly and fully attributed; the Journal and Oxford University Press are attributed as the original place of publication with the correct citation details given; if an article is subsequently reproduced or disseminated not in its entirety but only in part or as a derivative work this must be clearly indicated. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions{at}oxfordjournals.org

Article

Serine/arginine-rich splicing factors belong to a class of intrinsically disordered proteins

Chad Haynes and Lilia M. Iakoucheva*

The Rockefeller University, Laboratory of Statistical Genetics 1230 York Avenue, New York, NY 10021, USA

*To whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel: +1 212 327 7989; Fax: +1 212 327 7996; Email: lilia{at}rockefeller.edu

Received November 8, 2005. Revised December 5, 2005. Accepted December 14, 2005.

Serine/arginine-rich (SR) splicing factors play an important role in constitutive and alternative splicing as well as during several steps of RNA metabolism. Despite the wealth of functional information about SR proteins accumulated to-date, structural knowledge about the members of this family is very limited. To gain a better insight into structure-function relationships of SR proteins, we performed extensive sequence analysis of SR protein family members and combined it with ordered/disordered structure predictions. We found that SR proteins have properties characteristic of intrinsically disordered (ID) proteins. The amino acid composition and sequence complexity of SR proteins were very similar to those of the disordered protein regions. More detailed analysis showed that the SR proteins, and their RS domains in particular, are enriched in the disorder-promoting residues and are depleted in the order-promoting residues as compared to the entire human proteome. Moreover, disorder predictions indicated that RS domains of SR proteins were completely unstructured. Two different classification methods, the charge-hydropathy measure and the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the disorder scores, were in agreement with each other, and they both strongly predicted members of the SR protein family to be disordered. This study emphasizes the importance of the disordered structure for several functions of SR proteins, such as for spliceosome assembly and for interaction with multiple partners. In addition, it demonstrates the usefulness of order/disorder predictions for inferring protein structure from sequence.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 J. Am. Soc. Nephrol.Home page
S. P. RamachandraRao, Y. Zhu, T. Ravasi, T. A. McGowan, I. Toh, S. R. Dunn, S. Okada, M. A. Shaw, and K. Sharma
Pirfenidone Is Renoprotective in Diabetic Kidney Disease
J. Am. Soc. Nephrol., August 1, 2009; 20(8): 1765 - 1775.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 DevelopmentHome page
C. A. Spike, J. Bader, V. Reinke, and S. Strome
DEPS-1 promotes P-granule assembly and RNA interference in C. elegans germ cells
Development, March 1, 2008; 135(5): 983 - 993.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Nucleic Acids ResHome page
K. S. Sciabica and K. J. Hertel
The splicing regulators Tra and Tra2 are unusually potent activators of pre-mRNA splicing
Nucleic Acids Res., December 2, 2006; 34(22): 6612 - 6620.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.