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- **************************
- * Hemerythrins signature *
- **************************
-
- Marine invertebrates such as annelids or sipunculans possess two completely
- different types of oxygen binding proteins: globins which are found in the
- blood and hemerythrins which are found in the vascular system and the coelemic
- fluid or in muscles (myohemerythrins). Hemerythrins and myohemerythrins [1,2]
- are small proteins of about 110 to 129 amino acid residues that bind two iron
- atoms. Five histidines, one glutamic acid and one aspartic acid are involved
- in the binding of the iron atoms.
-
- Ovohemerythrin [3], a yolk protein from the leech Theromyzon tessulatum seems
- to belong to this family of proteins, it may play a role in the detoxification
- of free iron after a blood meal.
-
- As a signature pattern we selected a region, located in the C-terminal section
- of these proteins and that contains two of the iron-ligands: a histidine and
- an aspartic acid.
-
- -Consensus pattern: W-L-x-[NQ]-H-I-x(3)-D-F
- [H and D are iron ligands]
- -Sequences known to belong to this class detected by the pattern: ALL.
- -Other sequence(s) detected in SWISS-PROT: NONE.
- -Last update: December 1991 / First entry.
-
- [ 1] Sheriff S., Hendrickson W.A., Smith J.L.
- J. Mol. Biol. 197:273-296(1987).
- [ 2] Uchida T., Yano H., Satake K., Kubota I., Tsugita A.
- Protein Seq. Data Anal. 3:141-147(1990).
- [ 3] Baert J.-L., Britel M., Sautiere P., Malecha J.
- Eur. J. Biochem. 209:563-569(1992).
-