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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

A Conserved Three-Nucleotide Core Motif Defines Musashi Rna Binding Specificity, Nancy Zearfoss, Laura Deveau, Carina Clingman, Eric Schmidt, Emily Johnson, Francesca Massi, Sean Ryder Sep 2015

A Conserved Three-Nucleotide Core Motif Defines Musashi Rna Binding Specificity, Nancy Zearfoss, Laura Deveau, Carina Clingman, Eric Schmidt, Emily Johnson, Francesca Massi, Sean Ryder

Sean P. Ryder

Musashi (MSI) family proteins control cell proliferation and differentiation in many biological systems. They are overexpressed in tumors of several origins, and their expression level correlates with poor prognosis. MSI proteins control gene expression by binding RNA and regulating its translation. They contain two RNA recognition motif (RRM) domains, which recognize a defined sequence element. The relative contribution of each nucleotide to the binding affinity and specificity is unknown. We analyzed the binding specificity of three MSI family RRM domains using a quantitative fluorescence anisotropy assay. We found that the core element driving recognition is the sequence UAG. Nucleotides outside …


The N-Terminal Peptide Of The Syntaxin Tlg2p Modulates Binding Of Its Closed Conformation To Vps45p, Melonnie Furgason, Chris Macdonald, Scott Shanks, Sean Ryder, Nia Bryant, Mary Munson May 2015

The N-Terminal Peptide Of The Syntaxin Tlg2p Modulates Binding Of Its Closed Conformation To Vps45p, Melonnie Furgason, Chris Macdonald, Scott Shanks, Sean Ryder, Nia Bryant, Mary Munson

Sean P. Ryder

The Sec1/Munc18 (SM) protein family regulates intracellular trafficking through interactions with individual SNARE proteins and assembled SNARE complexes. Revealing a common mechanism of this regulation has been challenging, largely because of the multiple modes of interaction observed between SM proteins and their cognate syntaxin-type SNAREs. These modes include binding of the SM to a closed conformation of syntaxin, binding to the N-terminal peptide of syntaxin, binding to assembled SNARE complexes, and/or binding to nonsyntaxin SNAREs. The SM protein Vps45p, which regulates endosomal trafficking in yeast, binds the conserved N-terminal peptide of the syntaxin Tlg2p. We used size exclusion chromatography and …