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Phylogenetic relationships of three porcine mycoplasmas, Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae, Mycoplasma flocculare, and Mycoplasma hyorhinis, and complete 16S rRNA sequence of M. flocculare.

The nucleotide sequence of the 16S rRNA gene of Mycoplasma flocculare was determined and was compared with the sequence of a related porcine mycoplasma, Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae. While the overall level of DNA-DNA homology was approximately 11%, sequence alignment of the two 16S rRNA genes yielded a homology value of more than 95%, emphasizing the highly conserved nature of the 16S rRNA gene. Multiple sequence alignments with other mollicutes indicated that M. flocculare, M. hyopneumoniae, and Mycoplasma hyorhinis form a subcluster within the fermentans phylogroup, and this subcluster is distinct from the Mycoplasma pneumoniae phylogroup. Thus, the three mycoplasmas isolated from porcine respiratory systems exhibit phylogenetic similarities.

Animals↗

Phylogenetic characterisation of the G(L) sequences of equine arteritis virus isolated from semen of asymptomatic stallions and fatal cases of equine viral arteritis in Denmark.

The study describes for the first time the phylogenetic relationship between equine arteritis virus (EAV) isolated from asymptomatic virus-shedding stallions and fatal cases of equine viral arteritis (EVA) in an European country. EAV was isolated from three dead foals and an aborted foetus during three different outbreaks of EVA. From these fatalities, the complete open reading frame 5, encoding the EAV G(L) protein, was amplified by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction and subjected to nucleotide sequence analysis. Furthermore, DNA sequences were obtained from virus isolated from semen samples of seven virus-shedding, but clinically healthy, Danish stallions. DNA sequence alignment revealed an overall divergence of 0-14 and 0-10% at the nucleotide and amino acid levels, respectively. Phylogenetic analysis including 24 previously published sequences revealed that European as well as North American "types" of EAV were present in the semen of asymptomatic carrier stallions and in fatal cases of EVA. Our results reveal that the presence of EAV-shedding stallions in Denmark represents a potential source of severe EVA.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

flaA-like sequences containing internal termination codons (TAG) in urease-positive thermophilic Campylobacter isolated in Japan.

AIMS: To demonstrate two flaA-like sequences containing two internal termination codons (TAG) in two Japanese strains of urease-positive thermophilic Campylobacter (UPTC). METHODS AND RESULTS: A primer pair of A1 and A2, which ought to generate a product of approx. 1700 bp of the flaA gene for Campylobacter jejuni, was used to amplify products of approx. 1450 bp for two Japanese strains of UPTC, CF89-12 and CF89-14. After molecular cloning and sequencing, the nucleotide sequences of the amplicons from the two strains were found to be 1461 bp in length and to have nucleotide sequence differences in relation to each other at four nucleotide positions, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Nucleotide and amino acid sequence alignment and homology analysis demonstrated that the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplicons from the two Japanese strains have approx. 83% nucleotide and 80% amino acid sequence homology to the possible open reading frame of the flaA gene of UPTC NCTC 12892. SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT OF THE STUDY: Surprisingly, both PCR amplicons from the Japanese UPTC have two internal termination codons (TAG) at nucleotide positions from 775 to 777 and 817 to 819, respectively.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

Homology modelling of CYP3A4 from the CYP2C5 crystallographic template: analysis of typical CYP3A4 substrate interactions.

1. The results of homology modelling of cytochrome P4503A4 (CYP3A4), which is a human enzyme of major importance for the Phase 1 metabolism of drug substrates, from the CYP2C5 crystal structure is reported. 2. The overall homology between the two protein sequences was generally good (46%) with 24% of amino acid residues being identical and a 22% similarity between matched pairs in the CYP3A4 and CYP2C5 aligned sequences, thus indicating that CYP2C5 represents a viable template for modelling CYP3A4 by homology. 3. The CYP3A4 model appears to show consistency with the reported findings from the extensive site-directed mutagenesis studies already published. 4. Typical CYP3A4 substrates, such as midazolam, testosterone, nifedipine and verapamil, are shown to fit the putative active site of the enzyme structure in a manner consistent with their known positions of metabolism.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

Relation between weight matrix and substitution matrix: motif search by similarity.

MOTIVATION: The discovery of patterns shared by several sequences that differ greatly is a basic task in sequence analysis, and still a challenge. Several methods have been developed for detecting patterns. Methods commonly used for motif search include the Gibbs sampler, Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm and some intuitive greedy approaches. One cannot guarantee the optimality of the result produced by the Gibbs sampler in a single run. The deterministic EM methods tend to get trapped by local optima. Solutions found by greedy approaches are rarely sufficiently good. RESULTS: A simple model describing a motif or a portion of local multiple sequence alignment is the weight matrix model, in which a motif is characterized with position-specific probabilities. Two substitution matrices are proposed to relate the sequence similarity with the weight matrix. Combining the substitution matrix and weight matrix, we examine three typical sets of protein sequences with increasing complexity. At a low score threshold for pair similarity, sliding windows are compared with a seed window to find the score sum, which provides a measure of statistical significance for multiple sequence comparison. Such a similarity analysis reveals many aspects of motifs. Blocks determined by similarity can be used to deduce a primary weight matrix or an improved substitution matrix. The algorithm successfully obtains the optimal solution for the test sets by just greedy iteration.

Algorithms↗

Cloning and sequence analysis of the 22-kDa antigen genes of Orientia tsutsugamushi strains Kato, TA763, AFSC 7, 18-032460, TH1814, and MAK 119.

The 22-kDa protein antigen is one of several antigens recognized by sera from scrub typhus patients infected with Orientia tsutsugamushi. The 22-kDa protein genes from six O. tsutsugamushi strains (Kato, TA763, AFSC 7, 18-032460, TH1814, MAK119) were cloned and their sequences were determined and compared to each other and to the Karp strain sequence listed in GenBank. The sequence alignment revealed that the promoter regions of these seven strains were highly conserved. However, the ORFs exhibited some variation. The phylogenetic analysis of the DNA sequences indicated that among the seven strains assessed, Kato and TA763 were the most closely related, while Karp and TH1814 were the most distantly related. The information gained from this analysis will facilitate our selection of O. tsutsugamushi strains from which antigens should be derived to be included in a multivalent vaccine candidate for scrub typhus.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

Why are A(2B) receptors low-affinity adenosine receptors? Mutation of Asn273 to Tyr increases affinity of human A(2B) receptor for 2-(1-Hexynyl)adenosine.

Adenosine A(2B) receptors are known as low-affinity receptors due to their modest-to-negligible affinity for adenosine and prototypic agonists. Despite numerous synthetic efforts, 5'-N-ethylcarboxamidoadenosine (NECA) still is the reference agonist, albeit nonselective for this receptor. In our search for higher affinity agonists, we developed decision schemes to select amino acids for mutation to the corresponding residues in the most homologous, higher affinity, human A(2A) receptor. One scheme exploited knowledge on sequence alignments and modeling data and yielded three residues, V11, L58, and F59, mutation of which did not affect agonist affinity. The second scheme combined knowledge on sequence alignments and mutation data and pointed to Ala12 and Asn273. Mutation of Ala12 to threonine did not affect the affinity for NECA, (R)-N(6)-(phenylisopropyl)adenosine (R-PIA), and 2Cl Ado. The affinity of the N273Y mutant for NECA and R-PIA and for the antagonists xanthine amine congener (XAC), ZM241385, and SCH58261 was also unaltered. However, this mutant had a slightly increased affinity for a 2-substituted adenosine derivative, CGS21680. This prompted us to investigate other 2-substituted adenosines, with selectivity and high affinity for A(2A) receptors. All four compounds tested had improved affinity for the N273Y receptor. Of these, 2-(1-hexynyl)adenosine had submicromolar affinity for the N273Y receptor, 0.18 +/- 0.10 microM, with a 61-fold affinity gain over the wt receptor. In addition, the non-NECA analog (S)-PHP adenosine had an affinity of 1.7 +/- 0.5 microM for the wt receptor. The high affinity of (S)-PHP adenosine for the wt receptor suggests that further modifications at the 2-position may yield agonists with even higher affinity for A(2B) receptors.

Adenosine↗

Quantitative analysis of the conservation of the tertiary structure of protein segments.

The publication of the crystallographic structure of calmodulin protein has offered an example leading us to believe that it is possible for many protein sequence segments to exhibit multiple 3D structures referred to as multi-structural segments. To this end, this paper presents statistical analysis of uniqueness of the 3D-structure of all possible protein sequence segments stored in the Protein Data Bank (PDB, Jan. of 2003, release 103) that occur at least twice and whose lengths are greater than 10 amino acids (AAs). We refined the set of segments by choosing only those that are not parts of longer segments, which resulted in 9297 segments called a sponge set. By adding 8197 signature segments, which occur uniquely in the PDB, into the sponge set we have generated a benchmark set. Statistical analysis of the sponge set demonstrates that rotating, missing and disarranging operations described in the text, result in the segments becoming multi-structural. It turns out that missing segments do not exhibit a change of shape in the 3D-structure of a multi-structural segment. We use the root mean square distance for unit vector sequence (URMSD) as an improved measure to describe the characteristics of hinge rotations, missing, and disarranging segments. We estimated the rate of occurrence for rotating and disarranging segments in the sponge set and divided it by the number of sequences in the benchmark set which is found to be less than 0.85%. Since two of the structure changing operations concern negligible number of segment and the third one is found not to have impact on the structure, we conclude that the 3D-structure of proteins is conserved statistically for more than 98% of the segments. At the same time, the remaining 2% of the sequences may pose problems for the sequence alignment based structure prediction methods.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

Mutagenesis of putative catalytic and regulatory residues of Streptomyces chromofuscus phospholipase D differentially modifies phosphatase and phosphodiesterase activities.

Phospholipase D from Streptomyces chromofuscus (sc-PLD) is a member of the diverse family of metallo-phosphodiesterase/phosphatase enzymes that also includes purple acid phosphatases, protein phosphatases, and nucleotide phosphodiesterases. Whereas iron is an essential cofactor for scPLD activity, Mn2+ is also found in the enzyme. A third metal ion, Ca2+, has been shown to enhance scPLD catalytic activity although it is not an essential cofactor. Sequence alignment of scPLD with known phosphodiesterases and phosphatases requiring metal ions suggested that His-212, Glu-213, and Asp-389 could be involved in Mn2+ binding. H212A, E213A, and D389A were prepared to test this hypothesis. These three mutant enzymes and wild type scPLD show similar metal content but considerably different catalytic properties, suggesting different roles for each residue. His-212 appears involved in binding the phosphate group of substrates, whereas Glu-213 acts as a ligand for Ca2+. D389A showed a greatly reduced phosphodiesterase activity but almost unaltered ability to hydrolyze the phosphate group in p-nitrophenyl phosphate suggesting it had a critical role in aligning groups at the active site to control phosphodiesterase versus phosphatase activities. We propose a model for substrate and cofactor binding to the catalytic site of scPLD based on these results and on sequence alignment to purple acid phosphatases of known structure.

Acid Phosphatase↗

The PRALINE online server: optimising progressive multiple alignment on the web.

We introduce the online server for PRALINE (http://ibium.cs.vu.nl/programs/pralinewww/), an iterative versatile progressive multiple sequence alignment (MSA) tool. PRALINE provides various MSA optimisation strategies including weighted global and local profile pre-processing, secondary structure-guided alignment and a reliability measure for aligned individual residue positions. The latter can also be used to optimise the alignment when the profile pre-processing strategies are iterated. In addition, we have modelled the server output to enable comprehensive visualisation of the generated alignment and easy figure generation for publications. The alignment is represented in five default colour schemes based on: residue type, position conservation, position reliability, residue hydrophobicity and secondary structure; depending on the options set. We have also implemented a custom colour scheme that allows the user to select which colour will represent one or more amino acids in the alignment. The grouping of sequences, on which the alignment is based, can also be visualised as a dendrogram. The PRALINE algorithm is designed to work more as a toolkit for MSA rather than a one step process.

Internet↗

Prediction of homology model quality with multivariate regression.

A new method has been developed for prediction of homology model quality directly from the sequence alignment, using multivariate regression. Hence, the expected quality of future homology models can be estimated using only information about the primary structure. This method has been applied to protein kinases and can easily be extended to other protein families. Homology model quality for a reference set of homology models was verified by comparison to experimental structures, by calculation of root-mean-square deviations (RMSDs) and comparison of interresidue contact areas. The homology model quality measures were then used as dependent variables in a Partial Least Squares (PLS) regression, using a matrix of alignment score profiles found from the Point Accepted Mutation (PAM) 250 similarity matrix as independent variables. This resulted in a regression model that can be used to predict the accuracy of future homology models from the sequence alignment. Using this method, one can identify the target-template combinations that are most likely to give homology models of sufficient quality. Hence, this method can be used to effectively choose the optimal templates to use for the homology modeling. The method's ability to guide the choice of homology modeling templates was verified by comparison of success rates to those obtained using BLAST scores and target-template sequence identities, respectively. The results indicate that the method presented here performs best in choosing the optimal homology modeling templates. Using this method, the optimal template was chosen in 86% of the cases, as compared to 62% using BLAST scores, and 57% using sequence identities. The method presented here can also be used to identify regions of the protein structure that are difficult to model, as well as alignment errors. Hence, this method is a useful tool for ensuring that the best possible homology model is generated.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

Structural and sequence comparisons of quinone oxidoreductase, zeta-crystallin, and glucose and alcohol dehydrogenases.

Quinone oxidoreductase, zeta-crystallin, glucose dehydrogenase, and alcohol dehydrogenase belong to a superfamily of medium-chain dehydrogenase/reductases. The crystal structures of Escherichia coli quinone oxidoreductase (QOR) and Thermoplasma acidophilum glucose dehydrogenase have recently been determined and are compared here with the well-known structure of horse liver alcohol dehydrogenase. A structurally based comparison of these three enzymes confirms that they possess extensive overall structural homology despite low sequence identity. The most significant difference is the absence of the catalytic and structural zinc ions in QOR. A multiple structure-based sequence alignment has been constructed for the three enzymes and extended to include zeta-crystallin, an eye lens structural protein with quinone oxidoreductase activity and high sequence identity to E. coli quinone oxidoreductase. Residues which are important for catalysis have been altered and the functions and activities of the enzymes have diverged, illustrating a classic example of divergent evolution among a superfamily of enzymes.

Alcohol Dehydrogenase↗

Molecular phylogeny and larval morphological diversity of the lanternfish genus Hygophum (Teleostei: Myctophidae).

Larvae of the deep-sea lanternfish genus Hygophum (Myctophidae) exhibit a remarkable morphological diversity that is quite unexpected, considering their homogeneous adult morphology. In an attempt to elucidate the evolutionary patterns of such larval morphological diversity, nucleotide sequences of a portion of the mitochondrially encoded 16S ribosomal RNA gene were determined for seven Hygophum species and three outgroup taxa. Secondary structure-based alignment resulted in a character matrix consisting of 1172 bp of unambiguously aligned sequences, which were subjected to phylogenetic analyses using maximum-parsimony, maximum-likelihood, and neighbor-joining methods. The resultant tree topologies from the three methods were congruent, with most nodes, including that of the genus Hygophum, being strongly supported by various tree statistics. The most parsimonious reconstruction of the three previously recognized, distinct larval morphs onto the molecular phylogeny revealed that one of the morphs had originated as the common ancestor of the genus, the other two having diversified separately in two subsequent major clades. The patterns of such diversification are discussed in terms of the unusual larval eye morphology and geographic distribution.

Animals↗

Snow Mountain virus genome sequence and virus-like particle assembly.

Snow Mountain virus (SMV) belongs to the Norovirus genus of the Caliciviridae family. SMV is a genogroup II (GII) reference strain of human enteric caliciviruses associated with epidemic gastroenteritis. In this study, the positive sense RNA genome sequence of SMV was determined to be 7,537 nucleotides in length excluding the 3' polyadenylated tract. The genome is organized into three open reading frames typical of caliciviruses in the Norovirus genus. Pairwise sequence alignments showed SMV ORF1 is highly conserved with other genogroup II noroviruses, and most closely related to GII strains Melksham and Hawaii virus. In addition, comparative sequence analyses indicated that SMV is likely a recombinant norovirus. VP1/VP2 proteins self-assembled into virus-like particles (VLPs) when expressed in insect cells by a recombinant baculovirus. Characterization of one clone that expressed VP1, but failed to assemble into VLPs, identified histidine residue 91 as important for particle assembly under standard conditions of expression.

Caliciviridae↗

eBLOCKs: enumerating conserved protein blocks to achieve maximal sensitivity and specificity.

Classifying proteins into families and superfamilies allows identification of functionally important conserved domains. The motifs and scoring matrices derived from such conserved regions provide computational tools that recognize similar patterns in novel sequences, and thus enable the prediction of protein function for genomes. The eBLOCKs database enumerates a cascade of protein blocks with varied conservation levels for each functional domain. A biologically important region is most stringently conserved among a smaller family of highly similar proteins. The same region is often found in a larger group of more remotely related proteins with a reduced stringency. Through enumeration, highly specific signatures can be generated from blocks with more columns and fewer family members, while highly sensitive signatures can be derived from blocks with fewer columns and more members as in a superfamily. By applying PSI-BLAST and a modified K-means clustering algorithm, eBLOCKs automatically groups protein sequences according to different levels of similarity. Multiple sequence alignments are made and trimmed into a series of ungapped blocks. Motifs and position-specific scoring matrices were derived from eBLOCKs and made available for sequence search and annotation. The eBLOCKs database provides a tool for high-throughput genome annotation with maximal specificity and sensitivity. The eBLOCKs database is freely available on the World Wide Web at http://motif.stanford.edu/eblocks/ to all users for online usage. Academic and not-for-profit institutions wishing copies of the program may contact Douglas L. Brutlag (brutlag@stanford.edu). Commercial firms wishing copies of the program for internal installation may contact Jacqueline Tay at the Stanford Office of Technology Licensing (jacqueline.tay@stanford.edu; http://otl.stanford.edu/).

Algorithms↗

Characterization of nodavirus and viral encephalopathy and retinopathy in farmed turbot, Scophthalmus maximus (L.).

An outbreak of nodavirus infection in turbot larvae is described with respect to histopathology, immunohistochemistry, cell culture cultivation, RT-PCR amplification and sequence analysis of the capsid protein gene RNA2. Affected turbot developed classical signs of viral encephalopathy and retinopathy (VER) with abnormal swimming behaviour and high mortality levels. In the acute stage of infection, light microscopy revealed vacuolation of the central nervous system (CNS), with positive immunohistochemical staining for nodavirus. Later in the infection, CNS lesions appeared more chronic and contained clusters of cells immunopositive for nodavirus. Bacterial overgrowth in the intestines of the fish may have provoked or influenced the course of the nodavirus infection. We were unable to propagate the virus in cell culture. While RT-PCR using primers designed to detect Atlantic halibut nodavirus gave negative results, further testing with primers complementary to a more conserved region of RNA2 resulted in amplification of a product of the expected size. The entire RNA2 segment was cloned and sequenced. Sequence alignment showed that the turbot nodavirus (TNV) was different from previously described fish nodaviruses. In addition, phylogenetic analysis based on an 823 nt region of the sequence indicated that TNV clustered outside the four established fish nodavirus genotypes, suggesting a fifth genotype within the betanodaviruses.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

Comparison of conservation within and between the Ser/Thr and Tyr protein kinase family: proposed model for the catalytic domain of the epidermal growth factor receptor.

The protein kinase family can be subdivided into two main groups based on their ability to phosphorylate Ser/Thr or Tyr substrates. In order to understand the basis of this functional difference, we have carried out a comparative analysis of sequence conservation within and between the Ser/Thr and Tyr protein kinases. A multiple sequence alignment of 86 protein kinase sequences was generated. For each position in the alignment we have computed the conservation of residue type in the Ser/Thr, in the Tyr and in both of the kinase subfamilies. To understand the structural and/or functional basis for the conservation, we have mapped these conservation properties onto the backbone of the recently determined structure of the cAMP-dependent Ser/Thr kinase. The results show that the kinase structure can be roughly segregated, based upon conservation, into three zones. The inner zone contains residues highly conserved in all the kinase family and describes the hydrophobic core of the enzyme together with residues essential for substrate and ATP binding and catalysis. The outer zone contains residues highly variable in all kinases and represents the solvent-exposed surface of the protein. The third zone is comprised of residues conserved in either the Ser/Thr or Tyr kinases or in both, but which are not conserved between them. These are sandwiched between the hydrophobic core and the solvent-exposed surface. In addition to analyzing overall conservation in the kinase family, we have also looked at conservation of its substrate and ATP binding sites. The ATP site is highly conserved throughout the kinases, whereas the substrate binding site is more variable. The active site contains several positions which differ between the Ser/Thr and Tyr kinases and may be responsible for discriminating between hydroxyl bearing side chains. Using this information we propose a model for Tyr substrate binding to the catalytic domain of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR).

Amino Acid Sequence↗