Second Kunitz-type protease inhibitor domain of the human WFIKKN1 protein.
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Amino Acid Sequence↗
Biomedical subjects
Alinda Nagy
Publications and source records attributed to Alinda Nagy.
Modules, multidomain proteins and organismic complexity.
Originally the term 'protein module' was coined to distinguish mobile domains that frequently occur as building blocks of diverse multidomain proteins from 'static' domains that usually exist only as stand-alone units of single-domain proteins. Despite the widespread use of the term 'mobile domain', the distinction between static and mobile domains is rather vague as it is not easy to quantify the mobility of domains. In the present work we show that the most appropriate measure of the mobility of domains is the number of types of local environments in which a given domain is present. Ranking of domains with respect to this parameter in different evolutionary lineages highlighted marked differences in the propensity of domains to form multidomain proteins. Our analyses have also shown that there is a correlation between domain size and domain mobility: smaller domains are more likely to be used in the construction of multidomain proteins, whereas larger domains are more likely to be static, stand-alone domains. It is also shown that shuffling of a limited set of modules was facilitated by intronic recombination in the metazoan lineage and this has contributed significantly to the emergence of novel complex multidomain proteins, novel functions and increased organismic complexity of metazoa.
Animals↗
Expression, purification and characterization of the second Kunitz-type protease inhibitor domain of the human WFIKKN protein.
Recently we have described a novel secreted protein (the WFIKKN protein) that consists of multiple types of protease inhibitory modules, including two tandem Kunitz-type protease inhibitor-domains. On the basis of its homologies we have suggested that the WFIKKN protein is a multivalent protease inhibitor that may control the action of different proteases. In the present work we have expressed the second Kunitz-type protease inhibitor domain of the human protein WFIKKN in Escherichia coli, purified it by affinity chromatography on trypsin-Sepharose and its structure was characterized by CD spectroscopy. The recombinant protein was found to inhibit trypsin (Ki = 9.6 nm), but chymotrypsin, elastase, plasmin, pancreatic kallikrein, lung tryptase, plasma kallikrein, thrombin, urokinase or tissue plasminogen activator were not inhibited by the recombinant protein even at 1 microm concentration. In view of the marked trypsin-specificity of the inhibitor it is suggested that its physiological target may be trypsin.
Amino Acid Sequence↗