Molecular sled sequences are common in mammalian proteins
Name
Xiong-2016-Molecular sled seque.pdf
Size
1.63 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
b7b978d6d2ec6b879caf288c0e235f69
Author(s)
Xiong, Kan
Blainey, Paul C.
Date Issued
February 2016
Journal
Nucleic Acids Research
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Citation
Xiong, Kan, and Paul C. Blainey. “Molecular Sled Sequences Are Common in Mammalian Proteins.” Nucleic Acids Research (February 8, 2016): gkw035.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Recent work revealed a new class of molecular machines called molecular sleds, which are small basic molecules that bind and slide along DNA with the ability to carry cargo along DNA. Here, we performed biochemical and single-molecule flow stretching assays to investigate the basis of sliding activity in molecular sleds. In particular, we identified the functional core of pVIc, the first molecular sled characterized; peptide functional groups that control sliding activity; and propose a model for the sliding activity of molecular sleds. We also observed widespread DNA binding and sliding activity among basic polypeptide sequences that implicate mammalian nuclear localization sequences and many cell penetrating peptides as molecular sleds. These basic protein motifs exhibit weak but physiologically relevant sequence-nonspecific DNA affinity. Our findings indicate that many mammalian proteins contain molecular sled sequences and suggest the possibility that substantial undiscovered sliding activity exists among nuclear mammalian proteins.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biological Engineering
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Creative Commons Attribution
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkw035
