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Biomedical subjects

N Raikhel

Publications and source records attributed to N Raikhel.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

Plant glycosyltransferases.

Glycosyltransferases are involved in the biosyntheses of cell-wall polysaccharides, the addition of N-linked glycans to glycoproteins, and the attachment of sugar moieties to various small molecules such as hormones and flavonoids. In the past two years, substantial progress has been made in the identification and cloning of genes that encode glycosyltransferases. Moreover, analysis of the recently completed Arabidopsis genome sequence indicates the existence of several hundred additional genes encoding putative glycosyltransferases.

Cell Wall↗

Genes galore: a summary of methods for accessing results from large-scale partial sequencing of anonymous Arabidopsis cDNA clones.

High-throughput automated partial sequencing of anonymous cDNA clones provides a method to survey the repertoire of expressed genes from an organism. Comparison of the coding capacity of these expressed sequence tags (ESTs) with the sequences in the public data bases results in assignment of putative function to a significant proportion of the ESTs. Thus, the more than 13,400 plant ESTs that are currently available provide a new resource that will facilitate progress in many areas of plant biology. These opportunities are illustrated by a description of the results obtained from analysis of 1500 Arabidopsis ESTs from a cDNA library prepared from equal portions of poly(A+) mRNA from etiolated seedlings, roots, leaves, and flowering inflorescences. More than 900 different sequences were represented, 32% of which showed significant nucleotide or deduced amino acid sequences similarity to previously characterized genes or proteins from a wide range of organisms. At least 165 of the clones had significant deduced amino acid sequence homology to proteins or gene products that have not been previously characterized from higher plants. A summary of methods for accessing the information and materials generated by the Arabidopsis cDNA sequencing project is provided.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

Wound-induced accumulation of mRNA containing a hevein sequence in laticifers of rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis).

Hevein is a chitin-binding protein that is present in laticifers of the rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis). A cDNA clone (HEV1) encoding hevein was isolated by using the polymerase chain reaction with mixed oligonucleotides corresponding to two regions of hevein as primers and a Hevea latex cDNA library as a template. HEV1 is 1018 base pairs long and includes an open reading frame of 204 amino acids. The deduced amino acid sequence contains a putative signal sequence of 17 amino acid residues followed by a 187-amino acid polypeptide. This polypeptide has two striking features. The amino-terminal region (43 amino acids) is identical to hevein and shows homology to several chitin-binding proteins and to the amino termini of wound-inducible proteins in potato and poplar. The carboxyl-terminal portion of the polypeptide (144 amino acids) is 74-79% homologous to the carboxyl-terminal region of wound-inducible genes of potato. Wounding, as well as application of the plant hormones abscisic acid and ethylene, resulted in accumulation of hevein transcripts in leaves, stems, and latex but not in roots.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

Sequence variability in three wheat germ agglutinin isolectins: products of multiple genes in polyploid wheat.

Three highly homologous wheat germ isolectins (95-97%) are distinct gene products in hexaploid wheat. The amino acid sequences of two of these [wheat germ agglutinin 1 (WGA1) and 2 (WGA2)] are compared with sequence data derived from a complementary DNA (cDNA) clone for the third isolectin (WGA3). This comparison includes three corrections to earlier amino acid sequence data of both WGA1 and WGA2 at positions 109 (from Ser to Phe), 134 (from Gly to Lys), and 150 (from Gly to Trp). These reassignments are based on new results from crystal structure refinement and amino acid sequence data of WGA1, as well as the recently determined nucleotide sequence of WGA3. In addition, the C-terminal residue of WGA1 has been revised to Gly171 and now differs from WGA2 (Ala171). Four other positions, Asn9, Ala53, Gly119, and Ser123, at which WGA1 and WGA2 are identical but differ from the DNA sequence of WGA3, were also reinvestigated by amino acid sequencing techniques and confirmed. Variability among the three isolectins is observed at a total of 10 sequence positions: 9, 53, 56, 59, 66, 93, 109, 119, 123, and 171. Pairwise comparisons indicate that WGA3 deviates to a much larger extent from WGA1 (at eight positions) and from WGA2 (at seven positions) than the latter from one another (at five positions). Eight of the 10 mutations are equally distributed between domains B and C, the two interior and more highly conserved of the four WGA domains (A, B, C, D). Correlation of the variable residues with the three-dimensional structure indicates that all except the two previously described B-domain residues, 56 and 59 (Wright and Olafsdottir 1986), are easily accommodated at the dimer surface. WGA3 displays a higher degree of inter-domain similarity than found in WGA1 and WGA2. Of the seven variable positions that are located in the domain core (residues 3-31), five are in perfect agreement with our earlier predicted domain ancestor sequence. This suggests that of the three isolectins WGA3 is most closely related to the common ancestral molecule.

Amino Acid Sequence↗