2drp: Difference between revisions

[[Image:2drp.gif|left|200px]]<br /><applet load="2drp" size="350" color="white" frame="true" align="right" spinBox="true"  

The Cys2-His2 zinc-finger is the most widely occurring DNA-binding motif. The first structure of a zinc-finger/DNA complex revealed a fairly simple mechanism for DNA recognition suggesting that the zinc-finger might represent a candidate template for designing proteins to recognize DNA. Residues at three key positions in an alpha-helical 'reading head' play a dominant role in base-recognition and have been targets for mutagenesis experiments aimed at deriving a recognition code. Here we report the structure of a two zinc-finger DNA-binding domain from the protein Tramtrack complexed with DNA. The amino-terminal zinc-finger and its interaction with DNA illustrate several novel features. These include the use of a serine residue, which is semi-conserved and located outside the three key positions, to make a base contact. Its role in base-recognition correlates with a large, local, protein-induced deformation of the DNA helix at a flexible A-T-A sequence and may give insight into previous mutagenesis experiments. It is apparent from this structure that zinc-finger/DNA recognition is more complex than was originally perceived.

2DRP is a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_protein Single protein] structure of sequence from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drosophila_melanogaster Drosophila melanogaster] with <scene name='pdbligand=ZN:'>ZN</scene> as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ligand ligand]. Full crystallographic information is available from [http://oca.weizmann.ac.il/oca-bin/ocashort?id=2DRP OCA].  

[[Category: Finch, J T.]]

[[Category: Schwabe, J W.R.]]

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