Jonathan W Arthur | PubMed Health

PubMed2006

Scoring of predicted GRK2 phosphorylation sites in Nedd4-2.

MOTIVATION: Epithelial Na(+) channels (ENaC) mediate the transport of sodium (Na) across epithelia in the kidney, gut and lungs and are required for blood pressure regulation. They are inhibited by ubiquitin protein ligases, such as Nedd4-2. These ligases bind to proline-rich motifs (PY motifs) present in the C-termini of ENaC subunits. Loss of this inhibition leads to hypertension. We have previously reported that ENaC channels are maintained in the active state by the G protein coupled receptor kinase, GRK2. The enzyme has been implicated in the development of essential hypertension [R. D. Feldman (2002) Mol. Pharmacol., 61, 707-709]. Additional findings in our lab pointed towards a possible role for GRK2 in the phosphorylation and inactivation of Nedd4-2. RESULTS: We have predicted GRK2 phosphorylation sites on Nedd4-2 by combining sequence analysis, homology modeling and surface accessibility calculations. A total of 24 potential phosphorylation sites were predicted by sequence analysis. Of these, 16 could be modeled using homology modeling and 6 of these were found to have sufficient surface exposure to be accessible to the GRK2 enzyme responsible for the phosphorylation of Nedd4-2. The method provides an ordered list of the most probable GRK2 phosphorylation sites on Nedd4-2 providing invaluable guidance to future experimental studies aimed at mutating certain Nedd4-2 residues in order to prevent phosphorylation by GRK2. The method developed could be applied in a wide variety of biological applications involving the binding of one molecule to a protein. The relative effectiveness of the technique is determined mainly by the quality of the homology model built for the protein of interest. CONTACT: jarthur@med.usyd.edu.au

Algorithms↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Using proteomics to mine genome sequences.

We present a method for mining unannotated or annotated genome sequences with proteomic data to identify open reading frames. The region of a genome coding for a protein sequence is identified by using information from the analysis of proteins and peptides with MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry. The raw genome sequence or any unassembled contigs of an organism are theoretically cleaved into a number of equal sized but overlapping fragments, and these are then translated in all six frames into a series of virtual proteins. Each virtual protein is then subjected to a theoretical enzymatic digestion. Standard proteomic sample preparation methods are used to separate, array, and digest the proteins of interest to peptides. The masses of the resulting peptides are measured using mass spectrometry and compared to the theoretical peptide masses of the virtual proteins. The region of the genome responsible for coding for a particular protein can then be identified when there are a large number of hits between peptides from the protein and peptides from the virtual protein. The method makes no assumptions about the location of a protein in a particular gene sequence or the positions or types of start and stop codons. To illustrate this approach, all 773 proteins of Pseudomonas aeruginosa contained in SWISS-PROT were used to theoretically test the method and optimize parameters. Increasing the size of the virtual proteins results in an overall improvement in the ability to detect the coding region, at the cost of decreasing the sensitivity of the method for smaller proteins. Increasing the minimum number of matching peptides, lowering the mass error tolerance, or increasing the signal-to-noise ratio of the simulated mass spectrum, improves the ability to detect coding regions. The method is further demonstrated on experimental data from Mycobacterium tuberculosis and is also shown to work with eukaryotic organisms (e.g., Homo sapiens).

Amino Acid Sequence↗