| | Globin-coupled sensors and protoglobins share a common signaling mechanismEdited by Peter Brzezinski Received 17 March 2008; received in revised form 28 April 2008; accepted 6 May 2008. published online 15 May 2008. Abstract The globin-coupled sensors (GCSs) and protoglobins (Pgbs) form one lineage of the globin superfamily. The GCSs are multidomain sensory proteins involved in aerotaxis or gene regulation, while the Pgbs are single-domain globins of yet unknown function. We postulate that the GCSs and Pgbs share a common signaling mechanism to modulate diverse physiological functions. To elucidate the signaling properties of individual globin domains, we constructed and expressed chimeric receptors in Escherichia coli. We demonstrate that all the chimeric receptors reversibly bind oxygen in vitro and trigger aerotactic responses in vivo. Thus, oxygen binding to the globin domains of diverse GCSs and Pgbs form a common signaling state that can trigger aerotactic responses. a Department of Microbiology, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI 96822, United States b Advanced Studies in Genomics, Proteomics and Bioinformatics, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI 96822, United States Corresponding author. Address: Department of Microbiology, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI 96822, United States. Fax: +1 808 956 5339.
PII: S0014-5793(08)00401-8 doi:10.1016/j.febslet.2008.05.004 © 2008 Federation of European Biochemical Societies | |
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