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- ************************************
- * Thymosin beta-4 family signature *
- ************************************
-
- Thymosin beta-4 [1] is a polypeptide of 43 amino acid residues whose exact
- physiological role is not yet known. It was first isolated as a thymic
- hormone that induces terminal deoxynucleotidyltransferase. It is found in high
- quantity in thymus and spleen but is widely distributed in many tissues. It
- has also been shown to bind to actin monomers and thus to inhibit actin
- polymerization [2].
-
- The sequence of thymosin beta-4 is extremely well conserved in mammals and
- amphibians. A number of peptides closely related to thymosin beta-4 are known
- to exist [3,4]: thymosin beta-9 (and beta-8) in bovine and pig, thymosin beta-
- 10 in man and rat, thymosin beta-11 and beta-12 in trout.
-
- As a signature pattern for this family, we selected a stretch of 11 perfectly
- conserved residues located in the central part of the thymosin beta proteins.
- This region, rich in charged residues (4 Lys and 2 Glu), lies between two
- alpha-helical regions [5] and could be involved in the binding of actin [2].
-
- -Consensus pattern: K-L-K-K-T-E-T-Q-E-K-N
- -Sequences known to belong to this class detected by the pattern: ALL.
- -Other sequence(s) detected in SWISS-PROT: NONE.
- -Last update: June 1992 / Text revised.
-
- [ 1] Low T.L.K., Goldstein A.L.
- Meth. Enzymol. 116:248-255(1985).
- [ 2] Weeds A., Way M.
- Curr. Biol. 1:307-308(1991).
- [ 3] Horecker B.L., Erickson-Viitanen S., Hannappel E.
- Meth. Enzymol. 116:265-269(1985).
- [ 4] Yialouris P.P., Coles B., Tsitsiloni O., Schmid B., Howell S., Aitken A.,
- Voelter W., Haritos A.A.
- Biochem. J. 283:385-389(1992).
- [ 5] Zarbock J., Oschkinat H., Hannappel E., Kalbacher H., Voelter W.,
- Holak T.A.
- Biochemistry 29:7814-7821(1990).
-