1ty4: Difference between revisions

[[Image:1ty4.gif|left|200px]]<br /><applet load="1ty4" size="350" color="white" frame="true" align="right" spinBox="true"  

Programmed cell death in Caenorhabditis elegans is initiated by the binding of EGL-1 to CED-9, which disrupts the CED-4/CED-9 complex and allows CED-4 to activate the cell-killing caspase CED-3. Here we demonstrate that the C-terminal half of EGL-1 is necessary and sufficient for binding to CED-9 and for killing cells. Structure of the EGL-1/CED-9 complex revealed that EGL-1 adopts an extended alpha-helical conformation and induces substantial structural rearrangements in CED-9 upon binding. EGL-1 interface mutants failed to bind to CED-9 or to release CED-4 from the CED-4/CED-9 complex, and were unable to induce cell death in vivo. A surface patch on CED-9, different from that required for binding to EGL-1, was identified to be responsible for binding to CED-4. These data suggest a working mechanism for the release of CED-4 from the CED-4/CED-9 complex upon EGL-1 binding and provide a mechanistic framework for understanding apoptosis activation in C. elegans.

1TY4 is a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_complex Protein complex] structure of sequences from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caenorhabditis_elegans Caenorhabditis elegans]. Full crystallographic information is available from [http://oca.weizmann.ac.il/oca-bin/ocashort?id=1TY4 OCA].  

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