#### Sample records for compo composite motif

1. Composite Materials Processing of Cast Iron and Ceramics Using Compo-Casting Technology

Tomita, Yoshihiro; Sumimoto, Haruyoshi

The compo-casting technology of ceramics and cast iron is expected to be one of the major casting technologies that can expand the application fields of cast iron. This technique allows the heat energy of the molten metal to be utilized to produce cast iron products which are added with functions of ceramic materials. The largest problem in compo-casting technology is generation of cracks caused by thermal shock. Although this crack generation can be prevented by reducing the thermal stress by means of preheating ceramics, the necessary preheating temperature is considerably high and its precise controlling is difficult at the practical foundry working sites. In this study, we tried to numerically predict the critical preheating temperature of ceramics using the thermal stress analysis in unsteady heat transfer and the Newman's diagram, and found that the preheating of ceramics to reduce thermal stress could be substituted with placing an appropriate cast iron cover around the ceramics. Excellent results were obtained by using a method whereby a ceramic bar was covered with a flake graphite cast iron cover and fixed in a sand mold and then molten metal was poured. Then, two or three ceramics were examined at the same time under the compocasting condition. As a result, three specimens could be done at the same time by adjusting the cover space to 15mm. Moreover, irregular shape ceramics were examined under the compocasting condition. As a result, the compocasting could be done by devising the cover shape. In each condition, it was confirmed that the cover shape made from the analytical result was effective to the compocasting by doing the thermometry of the specimens.

2. Motif types, motif locations and base composition patterns around the RNA polyadenylation site in microorganisms, plants and animals

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background The polyadenylation of RNA is critical for gene functioning, but the conserved sequence motifs (often called signal or signature motifs), motif locations and abundances, and base composition patterns around mRNA polyadenylation [poly(A)] sites are still uncharacterized in most species. The evolutionary tendency for poly(A) site selection is still largely unknown. Results We analyzed the poly(A) site regions of 31 species or phyla. Different groups of species showed different poly(A) signal motifs: UUACUU at the poly(A) site in the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi; UGUAAC (approximately 13 bases upstream of the site) in the alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii; UGUUUG (or UGUUUGUU) at mainly the fourth base downstream of the poly(A) site in the parasite Blastocystis hominis; and AAUAAA at approximately 16 bases and approximately 19 bases upstream of the poly(A) site in animals and plants, respectively. Polyadenylation signal motifs are usually several hundred times more abundant around poly(A) sites than in whole genomes. These predominant motifs usually had very specific locations, whether upstream of, at, or downstream of poly(A) sites, depending on the species or phylum. The poly(A) site was usually an adenosine (A) in all analyzed species except for B. hominis, and there was weak A predominance in C. reinhardtii. Fungi, animals, plants, and the protist Phytophthora infestans shared a general base abundance pattern (or base composition pattern) of “U-rich—A-rich—U-rich—Poly(A) site—U-rich regions”, or U-A-U-A-U for short, with some variation for each kingdom or subkingdom. Conclusion This study identified the poly(A) signal motifs, motif locations, and base composition patterns around mRNA poly(A) sites in protists, fungi, plants, and animals and provided insight into poly(A) site evolution. PMID:25052519

3. Circular code motifs in genomes of eukaryotes.

PubMed

El Soufi, Karim; Michel, Christian J

2016-11-01

A set X of 20 trinucleotides was identified in genes of bacteria, eukaryotes, plasmids and viruses, which has in average the highest occurrence in reading frame compared to its two shifted frames (Michel, 2015; Arquès and Michel, 1996). This set X has an interesting mathematical property as X is a circular code (Arquès and Michel, 1996). Thus, the motifs from this circular code X, called X motifs, have the property to always retrieve, synchronize and maintain the reading frame in genes. In this paper, we develop several statistical analyzes of X motifs in 138 available complete genomes of eukaryotes in which genes as well as non-gene regions are examined. Large X motifs (with lengths of at least 15 consecutive trinucleotides of X and compositions of at least 10 different trinucleotides of X among 20) have the highest occurrence in genomes of eukaryotes compared to its 23 large bijective motifs, its two large permuted motifs and large random motifs. The largest X motifs identified in eukaryotic genomes are presented, e.g. an X motif in a non-gene region of the genome Solanum pennellii with a length of 155 trinucleotides (465 nucleotides) and an expectation E=10(-71). In the human genome, the largest X motif occurs in a non-gene region of the chromosome 13 with a length of 36 trinucleotides and an expectation E=10(-11). X motifs in non-gene regions of genomes could be evolutionary relics of primitive genes using the circular code for translation. However, the proportion of X motifs (with lengths of at least 10 consecutive trinucleotides of X and compositions of at least 5 different trinucleotides of X among 20) in genes/non-genes of the 138 complete eukaryotic genomes is about 8. Thus, the X motifs occur preferentially in genes, as expected from the previous works of 20 years.

4. Mining Conditional Phosphorylation Motifs.

PubMed

Liu, Xiaoqing; Wu, Jun; Gong, Haipeng; Deng, Shengchun; He, Zengyou

2014-01-01

Phosphorylation motifs represent position-specific amino acid patterns around the phosphorylation sites in the set of phosphopeptides. Several algorithms have been proposed to uncover phosphorylation motifs, whereas the problem of efficiently discovering a set of significant motifs with sufficiently high coverage and non-redundancy still remains unsolved. Here we present a novel notion called conditional phosphorylation motifs. Through this new concept, the motifs whose over-expressiveness mainly benefits from its constituting parts can be filtered out effectively. To discover conditional phosphorylation motifs, we propose an algorithm called C-Motif for a non-redundant identification of significant phosphorylation motifs. C-Motif is implemented under the Apriori framework, and it tests the statistical significance together with the frequency of candidate motifs in a single stage. Experiments demonstrate that C-Motif outperforms some current algorithms such as MMFPh and Motif-All in terms of coverage and non-redundancy of the results and efficiency of the execution. The source code of C-Motif is available at: https://sourceforge. net/projects/cmotif/. PMID:26356863

5. The Motif of Meeting in Digital Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sheail, Philippa

2015-01-01

This article draws on theoretical work which considers the composition of meetings, in order to think about the form of the meeting in digital environments for higher education. To explore the motif of meeting, I undertake a "compositional interpretation" (Rose, 2012) of the default interface offered by "Collaborate", an…

6. Motifs in brain networks.

PubMed

Sporns, Olaf; Kötter, Rolf

2004-11-01

Complex brains have evolved a highly efficient network architecture whose structural connectivity is capable of generating a large repertoire of functional states. We detect characteristic network building blocks (structural and functional motifs) in neuroanatomical data sets and identify a small set of structural motifs that occur in significantly increased numbers. Our analysis suggests the hypothesis that brain networks maximize both the number and the diversity of functional motifs, while the repertoire of structural motifs remains small. Using functional motif number as a cost function in an optimization algorithm, we obtain network topologies that resemble real brain networks across a broad spectrum of structural measures, including small-world attributes. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that highly evolved neural architectures are organized to maximize functional repertoires and to support highly efficient integration of information.

7. Motifs in Brain Networks

PubMed Central

2004-01-01

Complex brains have evolved a highly efficient network architecture whose structural connectivity is capable of generating a large repertoire of functional states. We detect characteristic network building blocks (structural and functional motifs) in neuroanatomical data sets and identify a small set of structural motifs that occur in significantly increased numbers. Our analysis suggests the hypothesis that brain networks maximize both the number and the diversity of functional motifs, while the repertoire of structural motifs remains small. Using functional motif number as a cost function in an optimization algorithm, we obtain network topologies that resemble real brain networks across a broad spectrum of structural measures, including small-world attributes. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that highly evolved neural architectures are organized to maximize functional repertoires and to support highly efficient integration of information. PMID:15510229

8. Aztec, Incan and Mayan Motifs...Lead to Distinctive Designs.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shields, Joanne

2001-01-01

Describes an art project for seventh-grade students in which they choose motifs based on Incan, Aztec, and Mayan Indian materials to incorporate into two-dimensional designs. Explains that the activity objective is to create a unified, balanced and pleasing composition using a minimum of three motifs. (CMK)

9. [Personal motif in art].

PubMed

Gerevich, József

2015-01-01

One of the basic questions of the art psychology is whether a personal motif is to be found behind works of art and if so, how openly or indirectly it appears in the work itself. Analysis of examples and documents from the fine arts and literature allow us to conclude that the personal motif that can be identified by the viewer through symbols, at times easily at others with more difficulty, gives an emotional plus to the artistic product. The personal motif may be found in traumatic experiences, in communication to the model or with other emotionally important persons (mourning, disappointment, revenge, hatred, rivalry, revolt etc.), in self-searching, or self-analysis. The emotions are expressed in artistic activity either directly or indirectly. The intention nourished by the artist's identity (Kunstwollen) may stand in the way of spontaneous self-expression, channelling it into hidden paths. Under the influence of certain circumstances, the artist may arouse in the viewer, consciously or unconsciously, an illusionary, misleading image of himself. An examination of the personal motif is one of the important research areas of art therapy.

10. [Personal motif in art].

PubMed

Gerevich, József

2015-01-01

One of the basic questions of the art psychology is whether a personal motif is to be found behind works of art and if so, how openly or indirectly it appears in the work itself. Analysis of examples and documents from the fine arts and literature allow us to conclude that the personal motif that can be identified by the viewer through symbols, at times easily at others with more difficulty, gives an emotional plus to the artistic product. The personal motif may be found in traumatic experiences, in communication to the model or with other emotionally important persons (mourning, disappointment, revenge, hatred, rivalry, revolt etc.), in self-searching, or self-analysis. The emotions are expressed in artistic activity either directly or indirectly. The intention nourished by the artist's identity (Kunstwollen) may stand in the way of spontaneous self-expression, channelling it into hidden paths. Under the influence of certain circumstances, the artist may arouse in the viewer, consciously or unconsciously, an illusionary, misleading image of himself. An examination of the personal motif is one of the important research areas of art therapy. PMID:26202617

11. Convergent evolution and mimicry of protein linear motifs in host-pathogen interactions.

PubMed

Chemes, Lucía Beatriz; de Prat-Gay, Gonzalo; Sánchez, Ignacio Enrique

2015-06-01

Pathogen linear motif mimics are highly evolvable elements that facilitate rewiring of host protein interaction networks. Host linear motifs and pathogen mimics differ in sequence, leading to thermodynamic and structural differences in the resulting protein-protein interactions. Moreover, the functional output of a mimic depends on the motif and domain repertoire of the pathogen protein. Regulatory evolution mediated by linear motifs can be understood by measuring evolutionary rates, quantifying positive and negative selection and performing phylogenetic reconstructions of linear motif natural history. Convergent evolution of linear motif mimics is widespread among unrelated proteins from viral, prokaryotic and eukaryotic pathogens and can also take place within individual protein phylogenies. Statistics, biochemistry and laboratory models of infection link pathogen linear motifs to phenotypic traits such as tropism, virulence and oncogenicity. In vitro evolution experiments and analysis of natural sequences suggest that changes in linear motif composition underlie pathogen adaptation to a changing environment. PMID:25863584

12. Cell-specific expression of the macrophage scavenger receptor gene is dependent on PU.1 and a composite AP-1/ets motif.

PubMed Central

Moulton, K S; Semple, K; Wu, H; Glass, C K

1994-01-01

The type I and II scavenger receptors (SRs) are highly restricted to cells of monocyte origin and become maximally expressed during the process of monocyte-to-macrophage differentiation. In this report, we present evidence that SR genomic sequences from -245 to +46 bp relative to the major transcriptional start site were sufficient to confer preferential expression of a reporter gene to cells of monocyte and macrophage origin. This profile of expression resulted from the combinatorial actions of multiple positive and negative regulatory elements. Positive transcriptional control was primarily determined by two elements, located 181 and 46 bp upstream of the major transcriptional start site. Transcriptional control via the -181 element was mediated by PU.1/Spi-1, a macrophage and B-cell-specific transcription factor that is a member of the ets domain gene family. Intriguingly, the -181 element represented a relatively low-affinity binding site for Spi-B, a closely related member of the ets domain family that has been shown to bind with relatively high affinity to other PU.1/Spi-1 binding sites. These observations support the idea that PU.1/Spi-1 and Spi-B regulate overlapping but nonidentical sets of genes. The -46 element represented a composite binding site for a distinct set of ets domain proteins that were preferentially expressed in monocyte and macrophage cell lines and that formed ternary complexes with members of the AP-1 gene family. In concert, these observations suggest a model for how interactions between cell-specific and more generally expressed transcription factors function to dictate the appropriate temporal and cell-specific patterns of SR expression during the process of macrophage differentiation. Images PMID:8007948

13. PRINTS--a database of protein motif fingerprints.

PubMed

Attwood, T K; Beck, M E; Bleasby, A J; Parry-Smith, D J

1994-09-01

PRINTS is a compendium of protein motif 'fingerprints'. A fingerprint is defined as a group of motifs excised from conserved regions of a sequence alignment, whose diagnostic power or potency is refined by iterative databasescanning (in this case the OWL composite sequence database). Generally, the motifs do not overlap, but are separated along a sequence, though they may be contiguous in 3D-space. The use of groups of independent, linearly- or spatially-distinct motifs allows protein folds and functionalities to be characterised more flexibly and powerfully than conventional single-component patterns or regular expressions. The current version of the database contains 200 entries (encoding 950 motifs), covering a wide range of globular and membrane proteins, modular polypeptides, and so on. The growth of the databaseis influenced by a number of factors; e.g. the use of multiple motifs; the maximisation of sequence information through iterative database scanning; and the fact that the database searched is a large composite. The information contained within PRINTS is distinct from, but complementary to the consensus expressions stored in the widely-used PROSITE dictionary of patterns.

14. [Prediction of Promoter Motifs in Virophages].

PubMed

Gong, Chaowen; Zhou, Xuewen; Pan, Yingjie; Wang, Yongjie

2015-07-01

Virophages have crucial roles in ecosystems and are the transport vectors of genetic materials. To shed light on regulation and control mechanisms in virophage--host systems as well as evolution between virophages and their hosts, the promoter motifs of virophages were predicted on the upstream regions of start codons using an analytical tool for prediction of promoter motifs: Multiple EM for Motif Elicitation. Seventeen potential promoter motifs were identified based on the E-value, location, number and length of promoters in genomes. Sputnik and zamilon motif 2 with AT-rich regions were distributed widely on genomes, suggesting that these motifs may be associated with regulation of the expression of various genes. Motifs containing the TCTA box were predicted to be late promoter motif in mavirus; motifs containing the ATCT box were the potential late promoter motif in the Ace Lake mavirus . AT-rich regions were identified on motif 2 in the Organic Lake virophage, motif 3 in Yellowstone Lake virophage (YSLV)1 and 2, motif 1 in YSLV3, and motif 1 and 2 in YSLV4, respectively. AT-rich regions were distributed widely on the genomes of virophages. All of these motifs may be promoter motifs of virophages. Our results provide insights into further exploration of temporal expression of genes in virophages as well as associations between virophages and giant viruses. PMID:26524912

15. Sequential visibility-graph motifs

Iacovacci, Jacopo; Lacasa, Lucas

2016-04-01

Visibility algorithms transform time series into graphs and encode dynamical information in their topology, paving the way for graph-theoretical time series analysis as well as building a bridge between nonlinear dynamics and network science. In this work we introduce and study the concept of sequential visibility-graph motifs, smaller substructures of n consecutive nodes that appear with characteristic frequencies. We develop a theory to compute in an exact way the motif profiles associated with general classes of deterministic and stochastic dynamics. We find that this simple property is indeed a highly informative and computationally efficient feature capable of distinguishing among different dynamics and robust against noise contamination. We finally confirm that it can be used in practice to perform unsupervised learning, by extracting motif profiles from experimental heart-rate series and being able, accordingly, to disentangle meditative from other relaxation states. Applications of this general theory include the automatic classification and description of physical, biological, and financial time series.

16. Unravelling daily human mobility motifs.

PubMed

Schneider, Christian M; Belik, Vitaly; Couronné, Thomas; Smoreda, Zbigniew; González, Marta C

2013-07-01

Human mobility is differentiated by time scales. While the mechanism for long time scales has been studied, the underlying mechanism on the daily scale is still unrevealed. Here, we uncover the mechanism responsible for the daily mobility patterns by analysing the temporal and spatial trajectories of thousands of persons as individual networks. Using the concept of motifs from network theory, we find only 17 unique networks are present in daily mobility and they follow simple rules. These networks, called here motifs, are sufficient to capture up to 90 per cent of the population in surveys and mobile phone datasets for different countries. Each individual exhibits a characteristic motif, which seems to be stable over several months. Consequently, daily human mobility can be reproduced by an analytically tractable framework for Markov chains by modelling periods of high-frequency trips followed by periods of lower activity as the key ingredient.

17. Neural Circuits: Male Mating Motifs.

PubMed

Benton, Richard

2015-09-01

Characterizing microcircuit motifs in intact nervous systems is essential to relate neural computations to behavior. In this issue of Neuron, Clowney et al. (2015) identify recurring, parallel feedforward excitatory and inhibitory pathways in male Drosophila's courtship circuitry, which might explain decisive mate choice.

18. Redox active motifs in selenoproteins

PubMed Central

Li, Fei; Lutz, Patricia B.; Pepelyayeva, Yuliya; Arnér, Elias S. J.; Bayse, Craig A.; Rozovsky, Sharon

2014-01-01

Selenoproteins use the rare amino acid selenocysteine (Sec) to act as the first line of defense against oxidants, which are linked to aging, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases. Many selenoproteins are oxidoreductases in which the reactive Sec is connected to a neighboring Cys and able to form a ring. These Sec-containing redox motifs govern much of the reactivity of selenoproteins. To study their fundamental properties, we have used 77Se NMR spectroscopy in concert with theoretical calculations to determine the conformational preferences and mobility of representative motifs. This use of 77Se as a probe enables the direct recording of the properties of Sec as its environment is systematically changed. We find that all motifs have several ring conformations in their oxidized state. These ring structures are most likely stabilized by weak, nonbonding interactions between the selenium and the amide carbon. To examine how the presence of selenium and ring geometric strain governs the motifs’ reactivity, we measured the redox potentials of Sec-containing motifs and their corresponding Cys-only variants. The comparisons reveal that for C-terminal motifs the redox potentials increased between 20–25 mV when the selenenylsulfide bond was changed to a disulfide bond. Changes of similar magnitude arose when we varied ring size or the motifs’ flanking residues. This suggests that the presence of Sec is not tied to unusually low redox potentials. The unique roles of selenoproteins in human health and their chemical reactivities may therefore not necessarily be explained by lower redox potentials, as has often been claimed. PMID:24769567

19. Observability of Neuronal Network Motifs

PubMed Central

Whalen, Andrew J.; Brennan, Sean N.; Sauer, Timothy D.; Schiff, Steven J.

2014-01-01

We quantify observability in small (3 node) neuronal networks as a function of 1) the connection topology and symmetry, 2) the measured nodes, and 3) the nodal dynamics (linear and nonlinear). We find that typical observability metrics for 3 neuron motifs range over several orders of magnitude, depending upon topology, and for motifs containing symmetry the network observability decreases when observing from particularly confounded nodes. Nonlinearities in the nodal equations generally decrease the average network observability and full network information becomes available only in limited regions of the system phase space. Our findings demonstrate that such networks are partially observable, and suggest their potential efficacy in reconstructing network dynamics from limited measurement data. How well such strategies can be used to reconstruct and control network dynamics in experimental settings is a subject for future experimental work. PMID:25909092

20. The Thiamin Pyrophosphate-Motif

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dominiak, P.; Ciszak, E.

2003-01-01

Using databases the authors have identified a common thiamin pyrophosphate (TPP)-motif in the family of functionally diverse TPP-dependent enzymes. This common motif consists of multimeric organization of subunits and two catalytic centers. Each catalytic center (PP:PYR) is formed at the interface of the PP-domain binding the magnesium ion, pyrophosphate and amhopyrimidine ring of TPP, and the PYR-domain binding the aminopyrimidine ring of that cofactor. A pair of these catalytic centers constitutes the catalytic core (PP:PYR)(sub 2) within these enzymes. Analysis of the structural elements of this catalytic core reveals novel definition of the common amino acid sequences, which are GXPhiX(sub 4)(G)PhiXXGQ and GDGX(sub 25-30)NN in the PP-domain, and the EX(sub 4)(G)PhiXXGPhi in the PYR-domain, where Phi corresponds to a hydrophobic amino acid. This TPP-motif provides a novel tool for annotation of TPP-dependent enzymes useful in advancing functional proteomics.

1. The Thiamin Pyrophosphate-Motif

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dominiak, Paulina M.; Ciszak, Ewa M.

2003-01-01

Using databases the authors have identified a common thiamin pyrophosphate (TPP)-motif in the family of functionally diverse TPP-dependent enzymes. This common motif consists of multimeric organization of subunits, two catalytic centers, common amino acid sequence, and specific contacts to provide a flip-flop, or alternate site, mechanism of action. Each catalytic center [PP:PYR] is formed at the interface of the PP-domain binding the magnesium ion, pyrophosphate and aminopyrimidine ring of TPP, and the PYR-domain binding the aminopyrimidine ring of that cofactor. A pair of these catalytic centers constitutes the catalytic core [PP:PYR]* within these enzymes. Analysis of the structural elements of this catalytic core reveals novel definition of the common amino acid sequences, which are GX@&(G)@XXGQ, and GDGX25-30 within the PP- domain, and the E&(G)@XXG@ within the PYR-domain, where Q, corresponds to a hydrophobic amino acid. This TPP-motif provides a novel tool for annotation of TPP-dependent enzymes useful in advancing functional proteomics.

2. Detecting correlations among functional-sequence motifs

Pirino, Davide; Rigosa, Jacopo; Ledda, Alice; Ferretti, Luca

2012-06-01

Sequence motifs are words of nucleotides in DNA with biological functions, e.g., gene regulation. Identification of such words proceeds through rejection of Markov models on the expected motif frequency along the genome. Additional biological information can be extracted from the correlation structure among patterns of motif occurrences. In this paper a log-linear multivariate intensity Poisson model is estimated via expectation maximization on a set of motifs along the genome of E. coli K12. The proposed approach allows for excitatory as well as inhibitory interactions among motifs and between motifs and other genomic features like gene occurrences. Our findings confirm previous stylized facts about such types of interactions and shed new light on genome-maintenance functions of some particular motifs. We expect these methods to be applicable to a wider set of genomic features.

3. Regulatory motifs in Chk1

PubMed Central

Caparelli, Michael L.; O’Connell, Matthew J.

2013-01-01

Chk1 is the effector kinase of the G2 DNA damage checkpoint. Chk1 homologs possess a highly conserved N-terminal kinase domain and a less conserved C-terminal regulatory domain. In response to DNA damage, Chk1 is recruited to mediator proteins assembled at lesions on replication protein A (RPA)-coated single-stranded DNA (ssDNA). Chk1 is then activated by phosphorylation on S345 in the C-terminal regulatory domain by the PI3 kinase-related kinases ATM and ATR to enforce a G2 cell cycle arrest to allow time for DNA repair. Models have emerged in which this C-terminal phosphorylation relieves auto-inhibitory regulation of the kinase domain by the regulatory domain. However, experiments in fission yeast have shown that deletion of this putative auto-inhibitory domain actually inactivates Chk1 function. We show here that Chk1 homologs possess a kinase-associated 1 (KA1) domain that possesses residues previously implicated in Chk1 auto-inhibition. In addition, all Chk1 homologs have a small and highly conserved C-terminal extension (CTE domain). In fission yeast, both of these motifs are essential for Chk1 activation through interaction with the mediator protein Crb2, the homolog of human 53BP1. Thus, through different intra- and intermolecular interactions, these motifs explain why the regulatory domain exerts both positive and negative control over Chk1 activation. Such motifs may provide alternative targets to the ATP-binding pocket on which to dock Chk1 inhibitors as anticancer therapeutics. PMID:23422000

4. Structural Motifs of Gold Nanoparticles.

Cleveland, C. L.; Luedtke, W. D.; Landman, Uzi

1996-03-01

Through an extensive search, involving energy minimization using embedded atom potentials, we found(R.L. Whetten et al./), submitted to Nature (1995). that the energetically optimal sequence for AuN clusters (30 <= N <= 3000 atoms) consists of fcc crystallites, with a truncated-octahedral (TO) morphological motif, and variants thereof. These predictions for bare gold particles, and for particles coated by sef-assembled thiol monolayers, are discussed in light of recent experiments on the preparation and characterization (including mass spectrometry, electron microscopy, and X-ray diffraction) of nanocrystalline gold molecules (see Ref. 2).

5. An Algorithm for Motif Discovery with Iteration on Lengths of Motifs.

PubMed

Fan, Yetian; Wu, Wei; Yang, Jie; Yang, Wenyu; Liu, Rongrong

2015-01-01

Analysis of DNA sequence motifs is becoming increasingly important in the study of gene regulation, and the identification of motif in DNA sequences is a complex problem in computational biology. Motif discovery has attracted the attention of more and more researchers, and varieties of algorithms have been proposed. Most existing motif discovery algorithms fix the motif's length as one of the input parameters. In this paper, a novel method is proposed to identify the optimal length of the motif and the optimal motif with that length, through an iteration process on increasing length numbers. For each fixed length, a modified genetic algorithm (GA) is used for finding the optimal motif with that length. Three operators are used in the modified GA: Mutation that is similar to the one used in usual GA but is modified to avoid local optimum in our case, and Addition and Deletion that are proposed by us for the problem. A criterion is given for singling out the optimal length in the increasing motif's lengths. We call this method AMDILM (an algorithm for motif discovery with iteration on lengths of motifs). The experiments on simulated data and real biological data show that AMDILM can accurately identify the optimal motif length. Meanwhile, the optimal motifs discovered by AMDILM are consistent with the real ones and are similar with the motifs obtained by the three well-known methods: Gibbs Sampler, MEME and Weeder. PMID:26357084

6. The Thiamine-Pyrophosphate-Motif

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ciszak, Ewa; Dominiak, Paulina

2004-01-01

Thiamin pyrophosphate (TPP), a derivative of vitamin B1, is a cofactor for enzymes performing catalysis in pathways of energy production including the well known decarboxylation of a-keto acid dehydrogenases followed by transketolation. TPP-dependent enzymes constitute a structurally and functionally diverse group exhibiting multimeric subunit organization, multiple domains and two chemically equivalent catalytic centers. Annotation of functional TPP-dependcnt enzymes, therefore, has not been trivial due to low sequence similarity related to this complex organization. Our approach to analysis of structures of known TPP-dependent enzymes reveals for the first time features common to this group, which we have termed the TPP-motif. The TPP-motif consists of specific spatial arrangements of structural elements and their specific contacts to provide for a flip-flop, or alternate site, enzymatic mechanism of action. Analysis of structural elements entrained in the flip-flop action displayed by TPP-dependent enzymes reveals a novel definition of the common amino acid sequences. These sequences allow for annotation of TPP-dependent enzymes, thus advancing functional proteomics. Further details of three-dimensional structures of TPP-dependent enzymes will be discussed.

7. Synthetic biology with RNA motifs.

PubMed

Saito, Hirohide; Inoue, Tan

2009-02-01

Structural motifs in naturally occurring RNAs and RNPs can be employed as new molecular parts for synthetic biology to facilitate the development of novel devices and systems that modulate cellular functions. In this review, we focus on the following: (i) experimental evolution techniques of RNA molecules in vitro and (ii) their applications for regulating gene expression systems in vivo. For experimental evolution, new artificial RNA aptamers and RNA enzymes (ribozymes) have been selected in vitro. These functional RNA molecules are likely to be applicable in the reprogramming of existing gene regulatory systems. Furthermore, they may be used for designing hypothetical RNA-based living systems in the so-called RNA world. For the regulation of gene expressions in living cells, the development of new riboswitches allows us to modulate the target gene expression in a tailor-made manner. Moreover, recently RNA-based synthetic genetic circuits have been reported by employing functional RNA molecules, expanding the repertory of synthetic biology with RNA motifs. PMID:18775792

8. A motif for infinite metal atom wires.

PubMed

Yin, Xi; Warren, Steven A; Pan, Yung-Tin; Tsao, Kai-Chieh; Gray, Danielle L; Bertke, Jeffery; Yang, Hong

2014-12-15

A new motif for infinite metal atom wires with tunable compositions and properties is developed based on the connection between metal paddlewheel and square planar complex moieties. Two infinite Pd chain compounds, [Pd4(CO)4(OAc)4Pd(acac)2] 1 and [Pd4(CO)4(TFA)4Pd(acac)2] 2, and an infinite Pd-Pt heterometallic chain compound, [Pd4(CO)4(OAc)4Pt(acac)2] 3, are identified by single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. In these new structures, the paddlewheel moiety is a Pd four-membered ring coordinated by bridging carboxylic ligands and μ2 carbonyl ligands. The planar moiety is either Pd(acac)2 or Pt(acac)2 (acac = acetylacetonate). These moieties are connected by metallophilic interactions. The results showed that these one-dimensional metal wire compounds have photoluminescent properties that are tunable by changing ligands and metal ions. 3 can also serve as a single source precursor for making Pd4Pt bimetallic nanostructures with precise control of metal composition.

9. Motif3D: Relating protein sequence motifs to 3D structure.

PubMed

Gaulton, Anna; Attwood, Teresa K

2003-07-01

Motif3D is a web-based protein structure viewer designed to allow sequence motifs, and in particular those contained in the fingerprints of the PRINTS database, to be visualised on three-dimensional (3D) structures. Additional functionality is provided for the rhodopsin-like G protein-coupled receptors, enabling fingerprint motifs of any of the receptors in this family to be mapped onto the single structure available, that of bovine rhodopsin. Motif3D can be used via the web interface available at: http://www.bioinf.man.ac.uk/dbbrowser/motif3d/motif3d.html.

10. Biological network motif detection: principles and practice.

PubMed

2012-03-01

Network motifs are statistically overrepresented sub-structures (sub-graphs) in a network, and have been recognized as 'the simple building blocks of complex networks'. Study of biological network motifs may reveal answers to many important biological questions. The main difficulty in detecting larger network motifs in biological networks lies in the facts that the number of possible sub-graphs increases exponentially with the network or motif size (node counts, in general), and that no known polynomial-time algorithm exists in deciding if two graphs are topologically equivalent. This article discusses the biological significance of network motifs, the motivation behind solving the motif-finding problem, and strategies to solve the various aspects of this problem. A simple classification scheme is designed to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of several existing algorithms. Experimental results derived from a few comparative studies in the literature are discussed, with conclusions that lead to future research directions. PMID:22396487

11. Discriminative motif optimization based on perceptron training

PubMed Central

Patel, Ronak Y.; Stormo, Gary D.

2014-01-01

Motivation: Generating accurate transcription factor (TF) binding site motifs from data generated using the next-generation sequencing, especially ChIP-seq, is challenging. The challenge arises because a typical experiment reports a large number of sequences bound by a TF, and the length of each sequence is relatively long. Most traditional motif finders are slow in handling such enormous amount of data. To overcome this limitation, tools have been developed that compromise accuracy with speed by using heuristic discrete search strategies or limited optimization of identified seed motifs. However, such strategies may not fully use the information in input sequences to generate motifs. Such motifs often form good seeds and can be further improved with appropriate scoring functions and rapid optimization. Results: We report a tool named discriminative motif optimizer (DiMO). DiMO takes a seed motif along with a positive and a negative database and improves the motif based on a discriminative strategy. We use area under receiver-operating characteristic curve (AUC) as a measure of discriminating power of motifs and a strategy based on perceptron training that maximizes AUC rapidly in a discriminative manner. Using DiMO, on a large test set of 87 TFs from human, drosophila and yeast, we show that it is possible to significantly improve motifs identified by nine motif finders. The motifs are generated/optimized using training sets and evaluated on test sets. The AUC is improved for almost 90% of the TFs on test sets and the magnitude of increase is up to 39%. Availability and implementation: DiMO is available at http://stormo.wustl.edu/DiMO Contact: rpatel@genetics.wustl.edu, ronakypatel@gmail.com PMID:24369152

12. Mining, compressing and classifying with extensible motifs

PubMed Central

Apostolico, Alberto; Comin, Matteo; Parida, Laxmi

2006-01-01

Background Motif patterns of maximal saturation emerged originally in contexts of pattern discovery in biomolecular sequences and have recently proven a valuable notion also in the design of data compression schemes. Informally, a motif is a string of intermittently solid and wild characters that recurs more or less frequently in an input sequence or family of sequences. Motif discovery techniques and tools tend to be computationally imposing, however, special classes of "rigid" motifs have been identified of which the discovery is affordable in low polynomial time. Results In the present work, "extensible" motifs are considered such that each sequence of gaps comes endowed with some elasticity, whereby the same pattern may be stretched to fit segments of the source that match all the solid characters but are otherwise of different lengths. A few applications of this notion are then described. In applications of data compression by textual substitution, extensible motifs are seen to bring savings on the size of the codebook, and hence to improve compression. In germane contexts, in which compressibility is used in its dual role as a basis for structural inference and classification, extensible motifs are seen to support unsupervised classification and phylogeny reconstruction. Conclusion Off-line compression based on extensible motifs can be used advantageously to compress and classify biological sequences. PMID:16722593

13. Sampling Motif-Constrained Ensembles of Networks

Fischer, Rico; Leitão, Jorge C.; Peixoto, Tiago P.; Altmann, Eduardo G.

2015-10-01

The statistical significance of network properties is conditioned on null models which satisfy specified properties but that are otherwise random. Exponential random graph models are a principled theoretical framework to generate such constrained ensembles, but which often fail in practice, either due to model inconsistency or due to the impossibility to sample networks from them. These problems affect the important case of networks with prescribed clustering coefficient or number of small connected subgraphs (motifs). In this Letter we use the Wang-Landau method to obtain a multicanonical sampling that overcomes both these problems. We sample, in polynomial time, networks with arbitrary degree sequences from ensembles with imposed motifs counts. Applying this method to social networks, we investigate the relation between transitivity and homophily, and we quantify the correlation between different types of motifs, finding that single motifs can explain up to 60% of the variation of motif profiles.

14. [Psychopathological study of lie motif in schizophrenia].

PubMed

Otsuka, Koichiro; Kato, Satoshi

2006-01-01

The theme of a statement is called "lie motif" by the authors when schizophrenic patients say "I have lied to anybody". We tried to analyse of the psychopathological characteristics and anthropological meanings of the lie motifs in schizophrenia, which has not been thematically examined until now, based on 4 cases, and contrasting with the lie motif (Lügenmotiv) in depression taken up by A. Kraus (1989). We classified the lie motifs in schizophrenia into the following two types: a) the past directive lie motif: the patients speak about their real lie regarding it as a 'petty fault' in their distant past with self-guilty feeling, b) the present directive lie motif: the patients say repeatedly 'I have lied' (about their present speech and behavior), retreating from their previous commitments. The observed false confessions of innocent fault by the patients seem to belong to the present directed lie motif. In comparison with the lie motif in depression, it is characteristic for the lie motif in schizophrenia that the patients feel themselves to already have been caught out by others before they confess the lie. The lie motif in schizophrenia seems to come into being through the attribution process of taking the others' blame on ones' own shoulders, which has been pointed out to be common in the guilt experience in schizophrenia. The others' blame on this occasion is due to "the others' gaze" in the experience of the initial self-centralization (i.e. non delusional self-referential experience) in the early stage of schizophrenia (S. Kato 1999). The others' gaze is supposed to bring about the feeling of amorphous self-revelation which could also be regarded as the guilt feeling without content, to the patients. When the guilt feeling is bound with a past concrete fault, the patients tell the past directive lie motif. On the other hand, when the patients cannot find a past fixed content, and feel their present actions as uncertain and experience them as lies, the

15. Network motifs in integrated cellular networks of transcription-regulation and protein-protein interaction

Yeger-Lotem, Esti; Sattath, Shmuel; Kashtan, Nadav; Itzkovitz, Shalev; Milo, Ron; Pinter, Ron Y.; Alon, Uri; Margalit, Hanah

2004-04-01

Genes and proteins generate molecular circuitry that enables the cell to process information and respond to stimuli. A major challenge is to identify characteristic patterns in this network of interactions that may shed light on basic cellular mechanisms. Previous studies have analyzed aspects of this network, concentrating on either transcription-regulation or protein-protein interactions. Here we search for composite network motifs: characteristic network patterns consisting of both transcription-regulation and protein-protein interactions that recur significantly more often than in random networks. To this end we developed algorithms for detecting motifs in networks with two or more types of interactions and applied them to an integrated data set of protein-protein interactions and transcription regulation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We found a two-protein mixed-feedback loop motif, five types of three-protein motifs exhibiting coregulation and complex formation, and many motifs involving four proteins. Virtually all four-protein motifs consisted of combinations of smaller motifs. This study presents a basic framework for detecting the building blocks of networks with multiple types of interactions.

16. Discovery of Recurrent Sequence Motifs in Saccharomyces cerevisiae Cell Wall Proteins

PubMed Central

Coronado, Juan E.; Epstein, Susan L.; Qiu, Wei-Gang; Lipke, Peter N.

2008-01-01

This paper describes a procedure for the discovery of recurrent substrings in amino acid sequences of proteins, and its application to fungal cell walls. The evolutionary origins of fungal cell walls are an open biological question. This question can be approached by studies of similarity among the sequences and sub-sequences of fungal wall proteins and by comparison to proteins in animals. We describe here how we have discovered building blocks, represented as recurrent sequence motifs (sub-sequences), within fungal cell wall proteins. These motifs have not been systematically identified before, because the low Shannon entropy of the cell wall sequences has hindered searches for local sequence similarities by sequence alignments. Nonetheless, our new, composition-based scoring matrices for local alignment searches now support statistically valid alignments for such low entropy sequences (Coronado et al. 2006. Euk. Cell 5: 628–637). We have now searched for similarities in a set of 171 known and putative cell wall proteins from baker’s yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The aligned segments were repeatedly subdivided and catalogued to identify 217 recurrent sequence motifs of length 8 amino acids or greater. 95% of these motifs occur in more than one cell wall protein. The median length of the motifs is 22 amino acid residues, considerably shorter than protein domains. For many cell wall proteins, these motifs collectively account for more than half of their amino acids. The prevalence of these motifs supports the idea of fungal cell wall proteins as assemblies of recurrent building blocks. PMID:19430580

17. Stochastic motif extraction using hidden Markov model

SciTech Connect

Fujiwara, Yukiko; Asogawa, Minoru; Konagaya, Akihiko

1994-12-31

In this paper, we study the application of an HMM (hidden Markov model) to the problem of representing protein sequences by a stochastic motif. A stochastic protein motif represents the small segments of protein sequences that have a certain function or structure. The stochastic motif, represented by an HMM, has conditional probabilities to deal with the stochastic nature of the motif. This HMM directive reflects the characteristics of the motif, such as a protein periodical structure or grouping. In order to obtain the optimal HMM, we developed the {open_quotes}iterative duplication method{close_quotes} for HMM topology learning. It starts from a small fully-connected network and iterates the network generation and parameter optimization until it achieves sufficient discrimination accuracy. Using this method, we obtained an HMM for a leucine zipper motif. Compared to the accuracy of a symbolic pattern representation with accuracy of 14.8 percent, an HMM achieved 79.3 percent in prediction. Additionally, the method can obtain an HMM for various types of zinc finger motifs, and it might separate the mixed data. We demonstrated that this approach is applicable to the validation of the protein databases; a constructed HMM b as indicated that one protein sequence annotated as {open_quotes}lencine-zipper like sequence{close_quotes} in the database is quite different from other leucine-zipper sequences in terms of likelihood, and we found this discrimination is plausible.

18. Automated Motif Discovery from Glycan Array Data

PubMed Central

Cholleti, Sharath R.; Agravat, Sanjay; Morris, Tim; Saltz, Joel H.; Song, Xuezheng

2012-01-01

Abstract Assessing interactions of a glycan-binding protein (GBP) or lectin with glycans on a microarray generates large datasets, making it difficult to identify a glycan structural motif or determinant associated with the highest apparent binding strength of the GBP. We have developed a computational method, termed GlycanMotifMiner, that uses the relative binding of a GBP with glycans within a glycan microarray to automatically reveal the glycan structural motifs recognized by a GBP. We implemented the software with a web-based graphical interface for users to explore and visualize the discovered motifs. The utility of GlycanMotifMiner was determined using five plant lectins, SNA, HPA, PNA, Con A, and UEA-I. Data from the analyses of the lectins at different protein concentrations were processed to rank the glycans based on their relative binding strengths. The motifs, defined as glycan substructures that exist in a large number of the bound glycans and few non-bound glycans, were then discovered by our algorithm and displayed in a web-based graphical user interface (http://glycanmotifminer.emory.edu). The information is used in defining the glycan-binding specificity of GBPs. The results were compared to the known glycan specificities of these lectins generated by manual methods. A more complex analysis was also carried out using glycan microarray data obtained for a recombinant form of human galectin-8. Results for all of these lectins show that GlycanMotifMiner identified the major motifs known in the literature along with some unexpected novel binding motifs. PMID:22877213

19. Automated motif discovery from glycan array data.

PubMed

Cholleti, Sharath R; Agravat, Sanjay; Morris, Tim; Saltz, Joel H; Song, Xuezheng; Cummings, Richard D; Smith, David F

2012-10-01

Assessing interactions of a glycan-binding protein (GBP) or lectin with glycans on a microarray generates large datasets, making it difficult to identify a glycan structural motif or determinant associated with the highest apparent binding strength of the GBP. We have developed a computational method, termed GlycanMotifMiner, that uses the relative binding of a GBP with glycans within a glycan microarray to automatically reveal the glycan structural motifs recognized by a GBP. We implemented the software with a web-based graphical interface for users to explore and visualize the discovered motifs. The utility of GlycanMotifMiner was determined using five plant lectins, SNA, HPA, PNA, Con A, and UEA-I. Data from the analyses of the lectins at different protein concentrations were processed to rank the glycans based on their relative binding strengths. The motifs, defined as glycan substructures that exist in a large number of the bound glycans and few non-bound glycans, were then discovered by our algorithm and displayed in a web-based graphical user interface ( http://glycanmotifminer.emory.edu ). The information is used in defining the glycan-binding specificity of GBPs. The results were compared to the known glycan specificities of these lectins generated by manual methods. A more complex analysis was also carried out using glycan microarray data obtained for a recombinant form of human galectin-8. Results for all of these lectins show that GlycanMotifMiner identified the major motifs known in the literature along with some unexpected novel binding motifs. PMID:22877213

20. Networks of motifs from sequences of symbols.

PubMed

Sinatra, Roberta; Condorelli, Daniele; Latora, Vito

2010-10-22

We introduce a method to convert an ensemble of sequences of symbols into a weighted directed network whose nodes are motifs, while the directed links and their weights are defined from statistically significant co-occurences of two motifs in the same sequence. The analysis of communities of networks of motifs is shown to be able to correlate sequences with functions in the human proteome database, to detect hot topics from online social dialogs, to characterize trajectories of dynamical systems, and it might find other useful applications to process large amounts of data in various fields.

1. Networks of Motifs from Sequences of Symbols

Sinatra, Roberta; Condorelli, Daniele; Latora, Vito

2010-10-01

We introduce a method to convert an ensemble of sequences of symbols into a weighted directed network whose nodes are motifs, while the directed links and their weights are defined from statistically significant co-occurences of two motifs in the same sequence. The analysis of communities of networks of motifs is shown to be able to correlate sequences with functions in the human proteome database, to detect hot topics from online social dialogs, to characterize trajectories of dynamical systems, and it might find other useful applications to process large amounts of data in various fields.

2. Automated classification of RNA 3D motifs and the RNA 3D Motif Atlas.

PubMed

Petrov, Anton I; Zirbel, Craig L; Leontis, Neocles B

2013-10-01

The analysis of atomic-resolution RNA three-dimensional (3D) structures reveals that many internal and hairpin loops are modular, recurrent, and structured by conserved non-Watson-Crick base pairs. Structurally similar loops define RNA 3D motifs that are conserved in homologous RNA molecules, but can also occur at nonhomologous sites in diverse RNAs, and which often vary in sequence. To further our understanding of RNA motif structure and sequence variability and to provide a useful resource for structure modeling and prediction, we present a new method for automated classification of internal and hairpin loop RNA 3D motifs and a new online database called the RNA 3D Motif Atlas. To classify the motif instances, a representative set of internal and hairpin loops is automatically extracted from a nonredundant list of RNA-containing PDB files. Their structures are compared geometrically, all-against-all, using the FR3D program suite. The loops are clustered into motif groups, taking into account geometric similarity and structural annotations and making allowance for a variable number of bulged bases. The automated procedure that we have implemented identifies all hairpin and internal loop motifs previously described in the literature. All motif instances and motif groups are assigned unique and stable identifiers and are made available in the RNA 3D Motif Atlas (http://rna.bgsu.edu/motifs), which is automatically updated every four weeks. The RNA 3D Motif Atlas provides an interactive user interface for exploring motif diversity and tools for programmatic data access.

3. Automated classification of RNA 3D motifs and the RNA 3D Motif Atlas

PubMed Central

Petrov, Anton I.; Zirbel, Craig L.; Leontis, Neocles B.

2013-01-01

The analysis of atomic-resolution RNA three-dimensional (3D) structures reveals that many internal and hairpin loops are modular, recurrent, and structured by conserved non-Watson–Crick base pairs. Structurally similar loops define RNA 3D motifs that are conserved in homologous RNA molecules, but can also occur at nonhomologous sites in diverse RNAs, and which often vary in sequence. To further our understanding of RNA motif structure and sequence variability and to provide a useful resource for structure modeling and prediction, we present a new method for automated classification of internal and hairpin loop RNA 3D motifs and a new online database called the RNA 3D Motif Atlas. To classify the motif instances, a representative set of internal and hairpin loops is automatically extracted from a nonredundant list of RNA-containing PDB files. Their structures are compared geometrically, all-against-all, using the FR3D program suite. The loops are clustered into motif groups, taking into account geometric similarity and structural annotations and making allowance for a variable number of bulged bases. The automated procedure that we have implemented identifies all hairpin and internal loop motifs previously described in the literature. All motif instances and motif groups are assigned unique and stable identifiers and are made available in the RNA 3D Motif Atlas (http://rna.bgsu.edu/motifs), which is automatically updated every four weeks. The RNA 3D Motif Atlas provides an interactive user interface for exploring motif diversity and tools for programmatic data access. PMID:23970545

4. Short sequence motifs, overrepresented in mammalian conservednon-coding sequences

SciTech Connect

Minovitsky, Simon; Stegmaier, Philip; Kel, Alexander; Kondrashov,Alexey S.; Dubchak, Inna

2007-02-21

Background: A substantial fraction of non-coding DNAsequences of multicellular eukaryotes is under selective constraint. Inparticular, ~;5 percent of the human genome consists of conservednon-coding sequences (CNSs). CNSs differ from other genomic sequences intheir nucleotide composition and must play important functional roles,which mostly remain obscure.Results: We investigated relative abundancesof short sequence motifs in all human CNSs present in the human/mousewhole-genome alignments vs. three background sets of sequences: (i)weakly conserved or unconserved non-coding sequences (non-CNSs); (ii)near-promoter sequences (located between nucleotides -500 and -1500,relative to a start of transcription); and (iii) random sequences withthe same nucleotide composition as that of CNSs. When compared tonon-CNSs and near-promoter sequences, CNSs possess an excess of AT-richmotifs, often containing runs of identical nucleotides. In contrast, whencompared to random sequences, CNSs contain an excess of GC-rich motifswhich, however, lack CpG dinucleotides. Thus, abundance of short sequencemotifs in human CNSs, taken as a whole, is mostly determined by theiroverall compositional properties and not by overrepresentation of anyspecific short motifs. These properties are: (i) high AT-content of CNSs,(ii) a tendency, probably due to context-dependent mutation, of A's andT's to clump, (iii) presence of short GC-rich regions, and (iv) avoidanceof CpG contexts, due to their hypermutability. Only a small number ofshort motifs, overrepresented in all human CNSs are similar to bindingsites of transcription factors from the FOX family.Conclusion: Human CNSsas a whole appear to be too broad a class of sequences to possess strongfootprints of any short sequence-specific functions. Such footprintsshould be studied at the level of functional subclasses of CNSs, such asthose which flank genes with a particular pattern of expression. Overallproperties of CNSs are affected by patterns in

5. MotifMiner: A Table Driven Greedy Algorithm for DNA Motif Mining

Seeja, K. R.; Alam, M. A.; Jain, S. K.

DNA motif discovery is a much explored problem in functional genomics. This paper describes a table driven greedy algorithm for discovering regulatory motifs in the promoter sequences of co-expressed genes. The proposed algorithm searches both DNA strands for the common patterns or motifs. The inputs to the algorithm are set of promoter sequences, the motif length and minimum Information Content. The algorithm generates subsequences of given length from the shortest input promoter sequence. It stores these subsequences and their reverse complements in a table. Then it searches the remaining sequences for good matches of these subsequences. The Information Content score is used to measure the goodness of the motifs. The algorithm has been tested with synthetic data and real data. The results are found promising. The algorithm could discover meaningful motifs from the muscle specific regulatory sequences.

6. Chaotic motifs in gene regulatory networks.

PubMed

Zhang, Zhaoyang; Ye, Weiming; Qian, Yu; Zheng, Zhigang; Huang, Xuhui; Hu, Gang

2012-01-01

Chaos should occur often in gene regulatory networks (GRNs) which have been widely described by nonlinear coupled ordinary differential equations, if their dimensions are no less than 3. It is therefore puzzling that chaos has never been reported in GRNs in nature and is also extremely rare in models of GRNs. On the other hand, the topic of motifs has attracted great attention in studying biological networks, and network motifs are suggested to be elementary building blocks that carry out some key functions in the network. In this paper, chaotic motifs (subnetworks with chaos) in GRNs are systematically investigated. The conclusion is that: (i) chaos can only appear through competitions between different oscillatory modes with rivaling intensities. Conditions required for chaotic GRNs are found to be very strict, which make chaotic GRNs extremely rare. (ii) Chaotic motifs are explored as the simplest few-node structures capable of producing chaos, and serve as the intrinsic source of chaos of random few-node GRNs. Several optimal motifs causing chaos with atypically high probability are figured out. (iii) Moreover, we discovered that a number of special oscillators can never produce chaos. These structures bring some advantages on rhythmic functions and may help us understand the robustness of diverse biological rhythms. (iv) The methods of dominant phase-advanced driving (DPAD) and DPAD time fraction are proposed to quantitatively identify chaotic motifs and to explain the origin of chaotic behaviors in GRNs.

7. Basic OSF/Motif programming and applications

SciTech Connect

Brooks, D. ); Novak, B. )

1992-09-15

When users refer to Motif, they are usually talking about mwm, the window manager. However, when programmers mention Motif they are usually discussing the programming toolkit. This toolkit is used to develop new or modify existing applications. In this presentation, the term Motif will refer to the toolkit. Motif comes with a number of features that help users effectively use the applications built with it. The term look and feel may be overused; nonetheless, a consistent and well designed look and feel assists the user in Teaming and using new applications. The term point and click generally refers to using a mouse to select program commands. While Motif supports point and click, the toolkit also supports using the keyboard as a substitute for many operations. This gives a good typist a distinct advantage when using a familiar application. We will give an overview of the toolkit, touching on the user interface features and general programming considerations. Since the source code for many useful Motif programs is readily available, we will explain how to get these sources and touch on derived benefits. We win also point to other sources of on-line help and documentation. Finally, we will present some practical experiences developing applications.

8. Helix-packing motifs in membrane proteins.

PubMed

Walters, R F S; DeGrado, W F

2006-09-12

The fold of a helical membrane protein is largely determined by interactions between membrane-imbedded helices. To elucidate recurring helix-helix interaction motifs, we dissected the crystallographic structures of membrane proteins into a library of interacting helical pairs. The pairs were clustered according to their three-dimensional similarity (rmsd motifs whose structural features can be understood in terms of simple principles of helix-helix packing. Thus, the universe of common transmembrane helix-pairing motifs is relatively simple. The largest cluster, which comprises 29% of the library members, consists of an antiparallel motif with left-handed packing angles, and it is frequently stabilized by packing of small side chains occurring every seven residues in the sequence. Right-handed parallel and antiparallel structures show a similar tendency to segregate small residues to the helix-helix interface but spaced at four-residue intervals. Position-specific sequence propensities were derived for the most populated motifs. These structural and sequential motifs should be quite useful for the design and structural prediction of membrane proteins.

9. iMotifs: an integrated sequence motif visualization and analysis environment

PubMed Central

Piipari, Matias; Down, Thomas A.; Saini, Harpreet; Enright, Anton; Hubbard, Tim J.P.

2010-01-01

Motivation: Short sequence motifs are an important class of models in molecular biology, used most commonly for describing transcription factor binding site specificity patterns. High-throughput methods have been recently developed for detecting regulatory factor binding sites in vivo and in vitro and consequently high-quality binding site motif data are becoming available for increasing number of organisms and regulatory factors. Development of intuitive tools for the study of sequence motifs is therefore important. iMotifs is a graphical motif analysis environment that allows visualization of annotated sequence motifs and scored motif hits in sequences. It also offers motif inference with the sensitive NestedMICA algorithm, as well as overrepresentation and pairwise motif matching capabilities. All of the analysis functionality is provided without the need to convert between file formats or learn different command line interfaces. The application includes a bundled and graphically integrated version of the NestedMICA motif inference suite that has no outside dependencies. Problems associated with local deployment of software are therefore avoided. Availability: iMotifs is licensed with the GNU Lesser General Public License v2.0 (LGPL 2.0). The software and its source is available at http://wiki.github.com/mz2/imotifs and can be run on Mac OS X Leopard (Intel/PowerPC). We also provide a cross-platform (Linux, OS X, Windows) LGPL 2.0 licensed library libxms for the Perl, Ruby, R and Objective-C programming languages for input and output of XMS formatted annotated sequence motif set files. Contact: matias.piipari@gmail.com; imotifs@googlegroups.com PMID:20106815

10. SVM2Motif--Reconstructing Overlapping DNA Sequence Motifs by Mimicking an SVM Predictor.

PubMed

Vidovic, Marina M-C; Görnitz, Nico; Müller, Klaus-Robert; Rätsch, Gunnar; Kloft, Marius

2015-01-01

Identifying discriminative motifs underlying the functionality and evolution of organisms is a major challenge in computational biology. Machine learning approaches such as support vector machines (SVMs) achieve state-of-the-art performances in genomic discrimination tasks, but--due to its black-box character--motifs underlying its decision function are largely unknown. As a remedy, positional oligomer importance matrices (POIMs) allow us to visualize the significance of position-specific subsequences. Although being a major step towards the explanation of trained SVM models, they suffer from the fact that their size grows exponentially in the length of the motif, which renders their manual inspection feasible only for comparably small motif sizes, typically k ≤ 5. In this work, we extend the work on positional oligomer importance matrices, by presenting a new machine-learning methodology, entitled motifPOIM, to extract the truly relevant motifs--regardless of their length and complexity--underlying the predictions of a trained SVM model. Our framework thereby considers the motifs as free parameters in a probabilistic model, a task which can be phrased as a non-convex optimization problem. The exponential dependence of the POIM size on the oligomer length poses a major numerical challenge, which we address by an efficient optimization framework that allows us to find possibly overlapping motifs consisting of up to hundreds of nucleotides. We demonstrate the efficacy of our approach on a synthetic data set as well as a real-world human splice site data set. PMID:26690911

11. The Verrucomicrobia LexA-Binding Motif: Insights into the Evolutionary Dynamics of the SOS Response

PubMed Central

Erill, Ivan; Campoy, Susana; Kılıç, Sefa; Barbé, Jordi

2016-01-01

The SOS response is the primary bacterial mechanism to address DNA damage, coordinating multiple cellular processes that include DNA repair, cell division, and translesion synthesis. In contrast to other regulatory systems, the composition of the SOS genetic network and the binding motif of its transcriptional repressor, LexA, have been shown to vary greatly across bacterial clades, making it an ideal system to study the co-evolution of transcription factors and their regulons. Leveraging comparative genomics approaches and prior knowledge on the core SOS regulon, here we define the binding motif of the Verrucomicrobia, a recently described phylum of emerging interest due to its association with eukaryotic hosts. Site directed mutagenesis of the Verrucomicrobium spinosum recA promoter confirms that LexA binds a 14 bp palindromic motif with consensus sequence TGTTC-N4-GAACA. Computational analyses suggest that recognition of this novel motif is determined primarily by changes in base-contacting residues of the third alpha helix of the LexA helix-turn-helix DNA binding motif. In conjunction with comparative genomics analysis of the LexA regulon in the Verrucomicrobia phylum, electrophoretic shift assays reveal that LexA binds to operators in the promoter region of DNA repair genes and a mutagenesis cassette in this organism, and identify previously unreported components of the SOS response. The identification of tandem LexA-binding sites generating instances of other LexA-binding motifs in the lexA gene promoter of Verrucomicrobia species leads us to postulate a novel mechanism for LexA-binding motif evolution. This model, based on gene duplication, successfully addresses outstanding questions in the intricate co-evolution of the LexA protein, its binding motif and the regulatory network it controls. PMID:27489856

12. The Verrucomicrobia LexA-Binding Motif: Insights into the Evolutionary Dynamics of the SOS Response.

PubMed

Erill, Ivan; Campoy, Susana; Kılıç, Sefa; Barbé, Jordi

2016-01-01

The SOS response is the primary bacterial mechanism to address DNA damage, coordinating multiple cellular processes that include DNA repair, cell division, and translesion synthesis. In contrast to other regulatory systems, the composition of the SOS genetic network and the binding motif of its transcriptional repressor, LexA, have been shown to vary greatly across bacterial clades, making it an ideal system to study the co-evolution of transcription factors and their regulons. Leveraging comparative genomics approaches and prior knowledge on the core SOS regulon, here we define the binding motif of the Verrucomicrobia, a recently described phylum of emerging interest due to its association with eukaryotic hosts. Site directed mutagenesis of the Verrucomicrobium spinosum recA promoter confirms that LexA binds a 14 bp palindromic motif with consensus sequence TGTTC-N4-GAACA. Computational analyses suggest that recognition of this novel motif is determined primarily by changes in base-contacting residues of the third alpha helix of the LexA helix-turn-helix DNA binding motif. In conjunction with comparative genomics analysis of the LexA regulon in the Verrucomicrobia phylum, electrophoretic shift assays reveal that LexA binds to operators in the promoter region of DNA repair genes and a mutagenesis cassette in this organism, and identify previously unreported components of the SOS response. The identification of tandem LexA-binding sites generating instances of other LexA-binding motifs in the lexA gene promoter of Verrucomicrobia species leads us to postulate a novel mechanism for LexA-binding motif evolution. This model, based on gene duplication, successfully addresses outstanding questions in the intricate co-evolution of the LexA protein, its binding motif and the regulatory network it controls.

13. The Verrucomicrobia LexA-Binding Motif: Insights into the Evolutionary Dynamics of the SOS Response.

PubMed

Erill, Ivan; Campoy, Susana; Kılıç, Sefa; Barbé, Jordi

2016-01-01

The SOS response is the primary bacterial mechanism to address DNA damage, coordinating multiple cellular processes that include DNA repair, cell division, and translesion synthesis. In contrast to other regulatory systems, the composition of the SOS genetic network and the binding motif of its transcriptional repressor, LexA, have been shown to vary greatly across bacterial clades, making it an ideal system to study the co-evolution of transcription factors and their regulons. Leveraging comparative genomics approaches and prior knowledge on the core SOS regulon, here we define the binding motif of the Verrucomicrobia, a recently described phylum of emerging interest due to its association with eukaryotic hosts. Site directed mutagenesis of the Verrucomicrobium spinosum recA promoter confirms that LexA binds a 14 bp palindromic motif with consensus sequence TGTTC-N4-GAACA. Computational analyses suggest that recognition of this novel motif is determined primarily by changes in base-contacting residues of the third alpha helix of the LexA helix-turn-helix DNA binding motif. In conjunction with comparative genomics analysis of the LexA regulon in the Verrucomicrobia phylum, electrophoretic shift assays reveal that LexA binds to operators in the promoter region of DNA repair genes and a mutagenesis cassette in this organism, and identify previously unreported components of the SOS response. The identification of tandem LexA-binding sites generating instances of other LexA-binding motifs in the lexA gene promoter of Verrucomicrobia species leads us to postulate a novel mechanism for LexA-binding motif evolution. This model, based on gene duplication, successfully addresses outstanding questions in the intricate co-evolution of the LexA protein, its binding motif and the regulatory network it controls. PMID:27489856

14. Defect Motifs for Constant Mean Curvature Surfaces

Kusumaatmaja, Halim; Wales, David J.

2013-04-01

The energy landscapes of electrostatically charged particles embedded on constant mean curvature surfaces are analyzed for a wide range of system size, curvature, and interaction potentials. The surfaces are taken to be rigid, and the basin-hopping method is used to locate the putative global minimum structures. The defect motifs favored by potential energy agree with experimental observations for colloidal systems: extended defects (scars and pleats) for weakly positive and negative Gaussian curvatures, and isolated defects for strongly negative Gaussian curvatures. Near the phase boundary between these regimes, the two motifs are in strong competition, as evidenced from the appearance of distinct funnels in the potential energy landscape. We also report a novel defect motif consisting of pentagon pairs.

15. Armadillo motifs involved in vesicular transport.

PubMed

Striegl, Harald; Andrade-Navarro, Miguel A; Heinemann, Udo

2010-02-01

Armadillo (ARM) repeat proteins function in various cellular processes including vesicular transport and membrane tethering. They contain an imperfect repeating sequence motif that forms a conserved three-dimensional structure. Recently, structural and functional insight into tethering mediated by the ARM-repeat protein p115 has been provided. Here we describe the p115 ARM-motifs for reasons of clarity and nomenclature and show that both sequence and structure are highly conserved among ARM-repeat proteins. We argue that there is no need to invoke repeat types other than ARM repeats for a proper description of the structure of the p115 globular head region. Additionally, we propose to define a new subfamily of ARM-like proteins and show lack of evidence that the ARM motifs found in p115 are present in other long coiled-coil tethering factors of the golgin family.

16. Polyrhythmic synchronization in bursting networking motifs

Shilnikov, Andrey; Gordon, René; Belykh, Igor

2008-09-01

We study the emergence of polyrhythmic dynamics of motifs which are the building block for small inhibitory-excitatory networks, such as central pattern generators controlling various locomotive behaviors of animals. We discover that the pacemaker determining the specific rhythm of such a network composed of realistic Hodgkin-Huxley-type neurons is identified through the order parameter, which is the ratio of the neurons' burst durations or of duty cycles. We analyze different configurations of the motifs and describe the universal mechanisms for synergetics of the bursting patterns. We discuss also the multistability of inhibitory networks that results in polyrhythmicity of its emergent synchronous behaviors.

17. Calendar motifs on Getashen hydria

Vrtanesyan, Garegin

2015-07-01

Getashen hydria was found in the tombs of the middle bronze age (the first third of the second Millennium B.C.) in Armenia (Lake Sevan). It shows a scene consisting of three friezes. On the lower frieze depicts six zoomorphic figures, on an average six frieze waterfowl, and on top, is the graphic signs. Calendar motives of this composition have a numeric expression, six zoomorphic figures on the lower and middle friezes. Division of the annual cycle into two parts is known in the calendars of the ancient Indo-Iranian ("great summer" and "the great winter"). Animals on the lower frieze of the second mark, "winter" road of the Sun, because in this period are the most important events, ensuring the reproduction of the economy of the society. This rut ungulates - wild (deer) and domestic (goats). Moreover, the gon goats end in December, almost coinciding with the onset of the winter solstice. A couple of dogs on the lower frieze marks the version of the myth, imprisoned in the rock hero - the Sun (Mihr - Artavazd), to which his dogs have to chew the chains, anticipating his exit at the winter solstice. This is indicated by the direction of their movement, the Sun moves from left to right for an observer, only when located on the South side of the sky (i.e., beginning with the autumnal equinox). The most important event of the period of "summer road" of the Sun is the vernal equinox, which coincide with the arrival of waterfowl (ducks, geese). Their direction on the second frieze (left to right) corresponds to the position of the observer, facing North.

18. Motifs and structural blocks retrieval by GHT

Cantoni, Virginio; Ferone, Alessio; Petrosino, Alfredo; Polat, Ozlem

2014-06-01

The structure of a protein gives more insight on the protein function than its amino acid sequence. Protein structure analysis and comparison are important for understanding the evolutionary relationships among proteins, predicting protein functions, and predicting protein folding. Proteins are formed by two basic regular 3D structural patterns, called Secondary Structures (SSs): helices and sheets. A structural motif is a compact 3D protein block referring to a small specific combination of secondary structural elements, which appears in a variety of molecules. In this paper we compare a few approaches for motif retrieval based on the Generalized Hough Transform (GHT). A primary technique is to adopt the single SS as structural primitives; alternatives are to adopt a SSs pair as primitive structural element, or a SSs triplet, and so on up-to an entire motif. The richer the primitive, the higher the time for pre-analysis and search, and the simpler the inspection process on the parameter space for analyzing the peaks. Performance comparisons, in terms of precision and computation time, are here presented considering the retrieval of motifs composed by three to five SSs for more than 15 million searches. The approach can be easily applied to the retrieval of greater blocks, up to protein domains, or even entire proteins.

19. Subgraphs and network motifs in geometric networks

Itzkovitz, Shalev; Alon, Uri

2005-02-01

Many real-world networks describe systems in which interactions decay with the distance between nodes. Examples include systems constrained in real space such as transportation and communication networks, as well as systems constrained in abstract spaces such as multivariate biological or economic data sets and models of social networks. These networks often display network motifs: subgraphs that recur in the network much more often than in randomized networks. To understand the origin of the network motifs in these networks, it is important to study the subgraphs and network motifs that arise solely from geometric constraints. To address this, we analyze geometric network models, in which nodes are arranged on a lattice and edges are formed with a probability that decays with the distance between nodes. We present analytical solutions for the numbers of all three- and four-node subgraphs, in both directed and nondirected geometric networks. We also analyze geometric networks with arbitrary degree sequences and models with a bias for directed edges in one direction. Scaling rules for scaling of subgraph numbers with system size, lattice dimension, and interaction range are given. Several invariant measures are found, such as the ratio of feedback and feed-forward loops, which do not depend on system size, dimension, or connectivity function. We find that network motifs in many real-world networks, including social networks and neuronal networks, are not captured solely by these geometric models. This is in line with recent evidence that biological network motifs were selected as basic circuit elements with defined information-processing functions.

20. DNA motif elucidation using belief propagation.

PubMed

Wong, Ka-Chun; Chan, Tak-Ming; Peng, Chengbin; Li, Yue; Zhang, Zhaolei

2013-09-01

Protein-binding microarray (PBM) is a high-throughout platform that can measure the DNA-binding preference of a protein in a comprehensive and unbiased manner. A typical PBM experiment can measure binding signal intensities of a protein to all the possible DNA k-mers (k=8∼10); such comprehensive binding affinity data usually need to be reduced and represented as motif models before they can be further analyzed and applied. Since proteins can often bind to DNA in multiple modes, one of the major challenges is to decompose the comprehensive affinity data into multimodal motif representations. Here, we describe a new algorithm that uses Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) and can derive precise and multimodal motifs using belief propagations. We describe an HMM-based approach using belief propagations (kmerHMM), which accepts and preprocesses PBM probe raw data into median-binding intensities of individual k-mers. The k-mers are ranked and aligned for training an HMM as the underlying motif representation. Multiple motifs are then extracted from the HMM using belief propagations. Comparisons of kmerHMM with other leading methods on several data sets demonstrated its effectiveness and uniqueness. Especially, it achieved the best performance on more than half of the data sets. In addition, the multiple binding modes derived by kmerHMM are biologically meaningful and will be useful in interpreting other genome-wide data such as those generated from ChIP-seq. The executables and source codes are available at the authors' websites: e.g. http://www.cs.toronto.edu/∼wkc/kmerHMM. PMID:23814189

1. A survey of motif finding Web tools for detecting binding site motifs in ChIP-Seq data

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Abstract ChIP-Seq (chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing) has provided the advantage for finding motifs as ChIP-Seq experiments narrow down the motif finding to binding site locations. Recent motif finding tools facilitate the motif detection by providing user-friendly Web interface. In this work, we reviewed nine motif finding Web tools that are capable for detecting binding site motifs in ChIP-Seq data. We showed each motif finding Web tool has its own advantages for detecting motifs that other tools may not discover. We recommended the users to use multiple motif finding Web tools that implement different algorithms for obtaining significant motifs, overlapping resemble motifs, and non-overlapping motifs. Finally, we provided our suggestions for future development of motif finding Web tool that better assists researchers for finding motifs in ChIP-Seq data. Reviewers This article was reviewed by Prof. Sandor Pongor, Dr. Yuriy Gusev, and Dr. Shyam Prabhakar (nominated by Prof. Limsoon Wong). PMID:24555784

2. CombiMotif: A new algorithm for network motifs discovery in protein-protein interaction networks

Luo, Jiawei; Li, Guanghui; Song, Dan; Liang, Cheng

2014-12-01

Discovering motifs in protein-protein interaction networks is becoming a current major challenge in computational biology, since the distribution of the number of network motifs can reveal significant systemic differences among species. However, this task can be computationally expensive because of the involvement of graph isomorphic detection. In this paper, we present a new algorithm (CombiMotif) that incorporates combinatorial techniques to count non-induced occurrences of subgraph topologies in the form of trees. The efficiency of our algorithm is demonstrated by comparing the obtained results with the current state-of-the art subgraph counting algorithms. We also show major differences between unicellular and multicellular organisms. The datasets and source code of CombiMotif are freely available upon request.

3. Pressure-dependent formation of i-motif and G-quadruplex DNA structures.

PubMed

Takahashi, S; Sugimoto, N

2015-12-14

Pressure is an important physical stimulus that can influence the fate of cells by causing structural changes in biomolecules such as DNA. We investigated the effect of high pressure on the folding of duplex, DNA i-motif, and G-quadruplex (G4) structures; the non-canonical structures may be modulators of expression of genes involved in cancer progression. The i-motif structure was stabilized by high pressure, whereas the G4 structure was destabilized. The melting temperature of an intramolecular i-motif formed by 5'-dCGG(CCT)10CGG-3' increased from 38.8 °C at atmospheric pressure to 61.5 °C at 400 MPa. This effect was also observed in the presence of 40 wt% ethylene glycol, a crowding agent. In the presence of 40 wt% ethylene glycol, the G4 structure was less destabilized than in the absence of the crowding agent. P-T stability diagrams of duplex DNA with a telomeric sequence indicated that the duplex is more stable than G4 and i-motif structures under low pressure, but the i-motif dominates the structural composition under high pressure. Under crowding conditions, the P-T diagrams indicated that the duplex does not form under high pressure, and i-motif and G4 structures dominate. Our findings imply that temperature regulates the formation of the duplex structure, whereas pressure triggers the formation of non-canonical DNA structures like i-motif and G4. These results suggest that pressure impacts the function of nucleic acids by stabilizing non-canonical structures; this may be relevant to deep sea organisms and during evolution under prebiotic conditions.

4. Overlapping ETS and CRE Motifs ((G/C)CGGAAGTGACGTCA) preferentially bound by GABPα and CREB proteins.

PubMed

Chatterjee, Raghunath; Zhao, Jianfei; He, Ximiao; Shlyakhtenko, Andrey; Mann, Ishminder; Waterfall, Joshua J; Meltzer, Paul; Sathyanarayana, B K; FitzGerald, Peter C; Vinson, Charles

2012-10-01

Previously, we identified 8-bps long DNA sequences (8-mers) that localize in human proximal promoters and grouped them into known transcription factor binding sites (TFBS). We now examine split 8-mers consisting of two 4-mers separated by 1-bp to 30-bps (X(4)-N(1-30)-X(4)) to identify pairs of TFBS that localize in proximal promoters at a precise distance. These include two overlapping TFBS: the ETS⇔ETS motif ((C/G)CCGGAAGCGGAA) and the ETS⇔CRE motif ((C/G)CGGAAGTGACGTCAC). The nucleotides in bold are part of both TFBS. Molecular modeling shows that the ETS⇔CRE motif can be bound simultaneously by both the ETS and the B-ZIP domains without protein-protein clashes. The electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA) shows that the ETS protein GABPα and the B-ZIP protein CREB preferentially bind to the ETS⇔CRE motif only when the two TFBS overlap precisely. In contrast, the ETS domain of ETV5 and CREB interfere with each other for binding the ETS⇔CRE. The 11-mer (CGGAAGTGACG), the conserved part of the ETS⇔CRE motif, occurs 226 times in the human genome and 83% are in known regulatory regions. In vivo GABPα and CREB ChIP-seq peaks identified the ETS⇔CRE as the most enriched motif occurring in promoters of genes involved in mRNA processing, cellular catabolic processes, and stress response, suggesting that a specific class of genes is regulated by this composite motif. PMID:23050235

5. Overlapping ETS and CRE Motifs ((G/C)CGGAAGTGACGTCA) preferentially bound by GABPα and CREB proteins.

PubMed

Chatterjee, Raghunath; Zhao, Jianfei; He, Ximiao; Shlyakhtenko, Andrey; Mann, Ishminder; Waterfall, Joshua J; Meltzer, Paul; Sathyanarayana, B K; FitzGerald, Peter C; Vinson, Charles

2012-10-01

Previously, we identified 8-bps long DNA sequences (8-mers) that localize in human proximal promoters and grouped them into known transcription factor binding sites (TFBS). We now examine split 8-mers consisting of two 4-mers separated by 1-bp to 30-bps (X(4)-N(1-30)-X(4)) to identify pairs of TFBS that localize in proximal promoters at a precise distance. These include two overlapping TFBS: the ETS⇔ETS motif ((C/G)CCGGAAGCGGAA) and the ETS⇔CRE motif ((C/G)CGGAAGTGACGTCAC). The nucleotides in bold are part of both TFBS. Molecular modeling shows that the ETS⇔CRE motif can be bound simultaneously by both the ETS and the B-ZIP domains without protein-protein clashes. The electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA) shows that the ETS protein GABPα and the B-ZIP protein CREB preferentially bind to the ETS⇔CRE motif only when the two TFBS overlap precisely. In contrast, the ETS domain of ETV5 and CREB interfere with each other for binding the ETS⇔CRE. The 11-mer (CGGAAGTGACG), the conserved part of the ETS⇔CRE motif, occurs 226 times in the human genome and 83% are in known regulatory regions. In vivo GABPα and CREB ChIP-seq peaks identified the ETS⇔CRE as the most enriched motif occurring in promoters of genes involved in mRNA processing, cellular catabolic processes, and stress response, suggesting that a specific class of genes is regulated by this composite motif.

6. A Conserved Motif Provides Binding Specificity to the PP2A-B56 Phosphatase.

PubMed

Hertz, Emil Peter Thrane; Kruse, Thomas; Davey, Norman E; López-Méndez, Blanca; Sigurðsson, Jón Otti; Montoya, Guillermo; Olsen, Jesper V; Nilsson, Jakob

2016-08-18

Dynamic protein phosphorylation is a fundamental mechanism regulating biological processes in all organisms. Protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A) is the main source of phosphatase activity in the cell, but the molecular details of substrate recognition are unknown. Here, we report that a conserved surface-exposed pocket on PP2A regulatory B56 subunits binds to a consensus sequence on interacting proteins, which we term the LxxIxE motif. The composition of the motif modulates the affinity for B56, which in turn determines the phosphorylation status of associated substrates. Phosphorylation of amino acid residues within the motif increases B56 binding, allowing integration of kinase and phosphatase activity. We identify conserved LxxIxE motifs in essential proteins throughout the eukaryotic domain of life and in human viruses, suggesting that the motifs are required for basic cellular function. Our study provides a molecular description of PP2A binding specificity with broad implications for understanding signaling in eukaryotes.

7. A Conserved Motif Provides Binding Specificity to the PP2A-B56 Phosphatase.

PubMed

Hertz, Emil Peter Thrane; Kruse, Thomas; Davey, Norman E; López-Méndez, Blanca; Sigurðsson, Jón Otti; Montoya, Guillermo; Olsen, Jesper V; Nilsson, Jakob

2016-08-18

Dynamic protein phosphorylation is a fundamental mechanism regulating biological processes in all organisms. Protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A) is the main source of phosphatase activity in the cell, but the molecular details of substrate recognition are unknown. Here, we report that a conserved surface-exposed pocket on PP2A regulatory B56 subunits binds to a consensus sequence on interacting proteins, which we term the LxxIxE motif. The composition of the motif modulates the affinity for B56, which in turn determines the phosphorylation status of associated substrates. Phosphorylation of amino acid residues within the motif increases B56 binding, allowing integration of kinase and phosphatase activity. We identify conserved LxxIxE motifs in essential proteins throughout the eukaryotic domain of life and in human viruses, suggesting that the motifs are required for basic cellular function. Our study provides a molecular description of PP2A binding specificity with broad implications for understanding signaling in eukaryotes. PMID:27453045

8. Using SCOPE to identify potential regulatory motifs in coregulated genes.

PubMed

Martyanov, Viktor; Gross, Robert H

2011-05-31

SCOPE is an ensemble motif finder that uses three component algorithms in parallel to identify potential regulatory motifs by over-representation and motif position preference. Each component algorithm is optimized to find a different kind of motif. By taking the best of these three approaches, SCOPE performs better than any single algorithm, even in the presence of noisy data. In this article, we utilize a web version of SCOPE to examine genes that are involved in telomere maintenance. SCOPE has been incorporated into at least two other motif finding programs and has been used in other studies. The three algorithms that comprise SCOPE are BEAM, which finds non-degenerate motifs (ACCGGT), PRISM, which finds degenerate motifs (ASCGWT), and SPACER, which finds longer bipartite motifs (ACCnnnnnnnnGGT). These three algorithms have been optimized to find their corresponding type of motif. Together, they allow SCOPE to perform extremely well. Once a gene set has been analyzed and candidate motifs identified, SCOPE can look for other genes that contain the motif which, when added to the original set, will improve the motif score. This can occur through over-representation or motif position preference. Working with partial gene sets that have biologically verified transcription factor binding sites, SCOPE was able to identify most of the rest of the genes also regulated by the given transcription factor. Output from SCOPE shows candidate motifs, their significance, and other information both as a table and as a graphical motif map. FAQs and video tutorials are available at the SCOPE web site which also includes a "Sample Search" button that allows the user to perform a trial run. Scope has a very friendly user interface that enables novice users to access the algorithm's full power without having to become an expert in the bioinformatics of motif finding. As input, SCOPE can take a list of genes, or FASTA sequences. These can be entered in browser text fields, or read from

9. Functional Motifs in Biochemical Reaction Networks

PubMed Central

Tyson, John J.; Novák, Béla

2013-01-01

The signal-response characteristics of a living cell are determined by complex networks of interacting genes, proteins, and metabolites. Understanding how cells respond to specific challenges, how these responses are contravened in diseased cells, and how to intervene pharmacologically in the decision-making processes of cells requires an accurate theory of the information-processing capabilities of macromolecular regulatory networks. Adopting an engineer’s approach to control systems, we ask whether realistic cellular control networks can be decomposed into simple regulatory motifs that carry out specific functions in a cell. We show that such functional motifs exist and review the experimental evidence that they control cellular responses as expected. PMID:20055671

10. Anticipated synchronization in neuronal network motifs

Matias, F. S.; Gollo, L. L.; Carelli, P. V.; Copelli, M.; Mirasso, C. R.

2013-01-01

Two identical dynamical systems coupled unidirectionally (in a so called master-slave configuration) exhibit anticipated synchronization (AS) if the one which receives the coupling (the slave) also receives a negative delayed self-feedback. In oscillatory neuronal systems AS is characterized by a phase-locking with negative time delay τ between the spikes of the master and of the slave (slave fires before the master), while in the usual delayed synchronization (DS) regime τ is positive (slave fires after the master). A 3-neuron motif in which the slave self-feedback is replaced by a feedback loop mediated by an interneuron can exhibits both AS and DS regimes. Here we show that AS is robust in the presence of noise in a 3 Hodgkin-Huxley type neuronal motif. We also show that AS is stable for large values of τ in a chain of connected slaves-interneurons.

11. Analyzing network reliability using structural motifs

Khorramzadeh, Yasamin; Youssef, Mina; Eubank, Stephen; Mowlaei, Shahir

2015-04-01

This paper uses the reliability polynomial, introduced by Moore and Shannon in 1956, to analyze the effect of network structure on diffusive dynamics such as the spread of infectious disease. We exhibit a representation for the reliability polynomial in terms of what we call structural motifs that is well suited for reasoning about the effect of a network's structural properties on diffusion across the network. We illustrate by deriving several general results relating graph structure to dynamical phenomena.

12. Acidic/IQ Motif Regulator of Calmodulin*

PubMed Central

Putkey, John A.; Waxham, M. Neal; Gaertner, Tara R.; Brewer, Kari J.; Goldsmith, Michael; Kubota, Yoshihisa; Kleerekoper, Quinn K.

2013-01-01

The small IQ motif proteins PEP-19 (62 amino acids) and RC3 (78 amino acids) greatly accelerate the rates of Ca2+ binding to sites III and IV in the C-domain of calmodulin (CaM). We show here that PEP-19 decreases the degree of cooperativity of Ca2+ binding to sites III and IV, and we present a model showing that this could increase Ca2+ binding rate constants. Comparative sequence analysis showed that residues 28 to 58 from PEP-19 are conserved in other proteins. This region includes the IQ motif (amino acids 39–62), and an adjacent acidic cluster of amino acids (amino acids 28–40). A synthetic peptide spanning residues 28–62 faithfully mimics intact PEP-19 with respect to increasing the rates of Ca2+ association and dissociation, as well as binding preferentially to the C-domain of CaM. In contrast, a peptide encoding only the core IQ motif does not modulate Ca2+ binding, and binds to multiple sites on CaM. A peptide that includes only the acidic region does not bind to CaM. These results show that PEP-19 has a novel acidic/IQ CaM regulatory motif in which the IQ sequence provides a targeting function that allows binding of PEP-19 to CaM, whereas the acidic residues modify the nature of this interaction, and are essential for modulating Ca2+ binding to the C-domain of CaM. PMID:17991744

13. Dynamic motifs in socio-economic networks

Zhang, Xin; Shao, Shuai; Stanley, H. Eugene; Havlin, Shlomo

2014-12-01

Socio-economic networks are of central importance in economic life. We develop a method of identifying and studying motifs in socio-economic networks by focusing on “dynamic motifs,” i.e., evolutionary connection patterns that, because of “node acquaintances” in the network, occur much more frequently than random patterns. We examine two evolving bi-partite networks: i) the world-wide commercial ship chartering market and ii) the ship build-to-order market. We find similar dynamic motifs in both bipartite networks, even though they describe different economic activities. We also find that “influence” and “persistence” are strong factors in the interaction behavior of organizations. When two companies are doing business with the same customer, it is highly probable that another customer who currently only has business relationship with one of these two companies, will become customer of the second in the future. This is the effect of influence. Persistence means that companies with close business ties to customers tend to maintain their relationships over a long period of time.

14. Composites

Taylor, John G.

The Composites market is arguably the most challenging and profitable market for phenolic resins aside from electronics. The variety of products and processes encountered creates the challenges, and the demand for high performance in critical operations brings value. Phenolic composite materials are rendered into a wide range of components to supply a diverse and fragmented commercial base that includes customers in aerospace (Space Shuttle), aircraft (interiors and brakes), mass transit (interiors), defense (blast protection), marine, mine ducting, off-shore (ducts and grating) and infrastructure (architectural) to name a few. For example, phenolic resin is a critical adhesive in the manufacture of honeycomb sandwich panels. Various solvent and water based resins are described along with resin characteristics and the role of metal ions for enhanced thermal stability of the resin used to coat the honeycomb. Featured new developments include pultrusion of phenolic grating, success in RTM/VARTM fabricated parts, new ballistic developments for military vehicles and high char yield carbon-carbon composites along with many others. Additionally, global regional market resin volumes and sales are presented and compared with other thermosetting resin systems.

15. ET-Motif: Solving the Exact (l, d)-Planted Motif Problem Using Error Tree Structure.

PubMed

Al-Okaily, Anas; Huang, Chun-Hsi

2016-07-01

Motif finding is an important and a challenging problem in many biological applications such as discovering promoters, enhancers, locus control regions, transcription factors, and more. The (l, d)-planted motif search, PMS, is one of several variations of the problem. In this problem, there are n given sequences over alphabets of size [Formula: see text], each of length m, and two given integers l and d. The problem is to find a motif m of length l, where in each sequence there is at least an l-mer at a Hamming distance of [Formula: see text] of m. In this article, we propose ET-Motif, an algorithm that can solve the PMS problem in [Formula: see text] time and [Formula: see text] space. The time bound can be further reduced by a factor of m with [Formula: see text] space. In case the suffix tree that is built for the input sequences is balanced, the problem can be solved in [Formula: see text] time and [Formula: see text] space. Similarly, the time bound can be reduced by a factor of m using [Formula: see text] space. Moreover, the variations of the problem, namely the edit distance PMS and edited PMS (Quorum), can be solved using ET-Motif with simple modifications but upper bands of space and time. For edit distance PMS, the time and space bounds will be increased by [Formula: see text], while for edited PMS the increase will be of [Formula: see text] in the time bound. PMID:27152692

16. Occurrence probability of structured motifs in random sequences.

PubMed

Robin, S; Daudin, J-J; Richard, H; Sagot, M-F; Schbath, S

2002-01-01

The problem of extracting from a set of nucleic acid sequences motifs which may have biological function is more and more important. In this paper, we are interested in particular motifs that may be implicated in the transcription process. These motifs, called structured motifs, are composed of two ordered parts separated by a variable distance and allowing for substitutions. In order to assess their statistical significance, we propose approximations of the probability of occurrences of such a structured motif in a given sequence. An application of our method to evaluate candidate promoters in E. coli and B. subtilis is presented. Simulations show the goodness of the approximations. PMID:12614545

17. CLIMP: Clustering Motifs via Maximal Cliques with Parallel Computing Design.

PubMed

Zhang, Shaoqiang; Chen, Yong

2016-01-01

A set of conserved binding sites recognized by a transcription factor is called a motif, which can be found by many applications of comparative genomics for identifying over-represented segments. Moreover, when numerous putative motifs are predicted from a collection of genome-wide data, their similarity data can be represented as a large graph, where these motifs are connected to one another. However, an efficient clustering algorithm is desired for clustering the motifs that belong to the same groups and separating the motifs that belong to different groups, or even deleting an amount of spurious ones. In this work, a new motif clustering algorithm, CLIMP, is proposed by using maximal cliques and sped up by parallelizing its program. When a synthetic motif dataset from the database JASPAR, a set of putative motifs from a phylogenetic foot-printing dataset, and a set of putative motifs from a ChIP dataset are used to compare the performances of CLIMP and two other high-performance algorithms, the results demonstrate that CLIMP mostly outperforms the two algorithms on the three datasets for motif clustering, so that it can be a useful complement of the clustering procedures in some genome-wide motif prediction pipelines. CLIMP is available at http://sqzhang.cn/climp.html. PMID:27487245

18. CLIMP: Clustering Motifs via Maximal Cliques with Parallel Computing Design.

PubMed

Zhang, Shaoqiang; Chen, Yong

2016-01-01

A set of conserved binding sites recognized by a transcription factor is called a motif, which can be found by many applications of comparative genomics for identifying over-represented segments. Moreover, when numerous putative motifs are predicted from a collection of genome-wide data, their similarity data can be represented as a large graph, where these motifs are connected to one another. However, an efficient clustering algorithm is desired for clustering the motifs that belong to the same groups and separating the motifs that belong to different groups, or even deleting an amount of spurious ones. In this work, a new motif clustering algorithm, CLIMP, is proposed by using maximal cliques and sped up by parallelizing its program. When a synthetic motif dataset from the database JASPAR, a set of putative motifs from a phylogenetic foot-printing dataset, and a set of putative motifs from a ChIP dataset are used to compare the performances of CLIMP and two other high-performance algorithms, the results demonstrate that CLIMP mostly outperforms the two algorithms on the three datasets for motif clustering, so that it can be a useful complement of the clustering procedures in some genome-wide motif prediction pipelines. CLIMP is available at http://sqzhang.cn/climp.html.

19. No tradeoff between versatility and robustness in gene circuit motifs

Payne, Joshua L.

2016-05-01

Circuit motifs are small directed subgraphs that appear in real-world networks significantly more often than in randomized networks. In the Boolean model of gene circuits, most motifs are realized by multiple circuit genotypes. Each of a motif's constituent circuit genotypes may have one or more functions, which are embodied in the expression patterns the circuit forms in response to specific initial conditions. Recent enumeration of a space of nearly 17 million three-gene circuit genotypes revealed that all circuit motifs have more than one function, with the number of functions per motif ranging from 12 to nearly 30,000. This indicates that some motifs are more functionally versatile than others. However, the individual circuit genotypes that constitute each motif are less robust to mutation if they have many functions, hinting that functionally versatile motifs may be less robust to mutation than motifs with few functions. Here, I explore the relationship between versatility and robustness in circuit motifs, demonstrating that functionally versatile motifs are robust to mutation despite the inherent tradeoff between versatility and robustness at the level of an individual circuit genotype.

20. CLIMP: Clustering Motifs via Maximal Cliques with Parallel Computing Design

PubMed Central

Chen, Yong

2016-01-01

A set of conserved binding sites recognized by a transcription factor is called a motif, which can be found by many applications of comparative genomics for identifying over-represented segments. Moreover, when numerous putative motifs are predicted from a collection of genome-wide data, their similarity data can be represented as a large graph, where these motifs are connected to one another. However, an efficient clustering algorithm is desired for clustering the motifs that belong to the same groups and separating the motifs that belong to different groups, or even deleting an amount of spurious ones. In this work, a new motif clustering algorithm, CLIMP, is proposed by using maximal cliques and sped up by parallelizing its program. When a synthetic motif dataset from the database JASPAR, a set of putative motifs from a phylogenetic foot-printing dataset, and a set of putative motifs from a ChIP dataset are used to compare the performances of CLIMP and two other high-performance algorithms, the results demonstrate that CLIMP mostly outperforms the two algorithms on the three datasets for motif clustering, so that it can be a useful complement of the clustering procedures in some genome-wide motif prediction pipelines. CLIMP is available at http://sqzhang.cn/climp.html. PMID:27487245

1. MISAE: a new approach for regulatory motif extraction.

PubMed

Sun, Zhaohui; Yang, Jingyi; Deogun, Jitender S

2004-01-01

The recognition of regulatory motifs of co-regulated genes is essential for understanding the regulatory mechanisms. However, the automatic extraction of regulatory motifs from a given data set of the upstream non-coding DNA sequences of a family of co-regulated genes is difficult because regulatory motifs are often subtle and inexact. This problem is further complicated by the corruption of the data sets. In this paper, a new approach called Mismatch-allowed Probabilistic Suffix Tree Motif Extraction (MISAE) is proposed. It combines the mismatch-allowed probabilistic suffix tree that is a probabilistic model and local prediction for the extraction of regulatory motifs. The proposed approach is tested on 15 co-regulated gene families and compares favorably with other state-of-the-art approaches. Moreover, MISAE performs well on "corrupted" data sets. It is able to extract the motif from a "corrupted" data set with less than one fourth of the sequences containing the real motif.

2. RNA structural motif recognition based on least-squares distance.

PubMed

Shen, Ying; Wong, Hau-San; Zhang, Shaohong; Zhang, Lin

2013-09-01

RNA structural motifs are recurrent structural elements occurring in RNA molecules. RNA structural motif recognition aims to find RNA substructures that are similar to a query motif, and it is important for RNA structure analysis and RNA function prediction. In view of this, we propose a new method known as RNA Structural Motif Recognition based on Least-Squares distance (LS-RSMR) to effectively recognize RNA structural motifs. A test set consisting of five types of RNA structural motifs occurring in Escherichia coli ribosomal RNA is compiled by us. Experiments are conducted for recognizing these five types of motifs. The experimental results fully reveal the superiority of the proposed LS-RSMR compared with four other state-of-the-art methods.

3. Chaotic motif sampler: detecting motifs from biological sequences by using chaotic neurodynamics

Matsuura, Takafumi; Ikeguchi, Tohru

Identification of a region in biological sequences, motif extraction problem (MEP) is solved in bioinformatics. However, the MEP is an NP-hard problem. Therefore, it is almost impossible to obtain an optimal solution within a reasonable time frame. To find near optimal solutions for NP-hard combinatorial optimization problems such as traveling salesman problems, quadratic assignment problems, and vehicle routing problems, chaotic search, which is one of the deterministic approaches, has been proposed and exhibits better performance than stochastic approaches. In this paper, we propose a new alignment method that employs chaotic dynamics to solve the MEPs. It is called the Chaotic Motif Sampler. We show that the performance of the Chaotic Motif Sampler is considerably better than that of the conventional methods such as the Gibbs Site Sampler and the Neighborhood Optimization for Multiple Alignment Discovery.

4. The RNA 3D Motif Atlas: Computational methods for extraction, organization and evaluation of RNA motifs.

PubMed

Parlea, Lorena G; Sweeney, Blake A; Hosseini-Asanjan, Maryam; Zirbel, Craig L; Leontis, Neocles B

2016-07-01

RNA 3D motifs occupy places in structured RNA molecules that correspond to the hairpin, internal and multi-helix junction "loops" of their secondary structure representations. As many as 40% of the nucleotides of an RNA molecule can belong to these structural elements, which are distinct from the regular double helical regions formed by contiguous AU, GC, and GU Watson-Crick basepairs. With the large number of atomic- or near atomic-resolution 3D structures appearing in a steady stream in the PDB/NDB structure databases, the automated identification, extraction, comparison, clustering and visualization of these structural elements presents an opportunity to enhance RNA science. Three broad applications are: (1) identification of modular, autonomous structural units for RNA nanotechnology, nanobiology and synthetic biology applications; (2) bioinformatic analysis to improve RNA 3D structure prediction from sequence; and (3) creation of searchable databases for exploring the binding specificities, structural flexibility, and dynamics of these RNA elements. In this contribution, we review methods developed for computational extraction of hairpin and internal loop motifs from a non-redundant set of high-quality RNA 3D structures. We provide a statistical summary of the extracted hairpin and internal loop motifs in the most recent version of the RNA 3D Motif Atlas. We also explore the reliability and accuracy of the extraction process by examining its performance in clustering recurrent motifs from homologous ribosomal RNA (rRNA) structures. We conclude with a summary of remaining challenges, especially with regard to extraction of multi-helix junction motifs. PMID:27125735

5. Composites

Chmielewski, M.; Nosewicz, S.; Pietrzak, K.; Rojek, J.; Strojny-Nędza, A.; Mackiewicz, S.; Dutkiewicz, J.

2014-11-01

It is commonly known that the properties of sintered materials are strongly related to technological conditions of the densification process. This paper shows the sintering behavior of a NiAl-Al2O3 composite, and its individual components sintered separately. Each kind of material was processed via the powder metallurgy route (hot pressing). The progress of sintering at different stages of the process was tested. Changes in the microstructure were examined using scanning and transmission electron microscopy. Metal-ceramics interface was clean and no additional phases were detected. Correlation between the microstructure, density, and mechanical properties of the sintered materials was analyzed. The values of elastic constants of NiAl/Al2O3 were close to intermetallic ones due to the volume content of the NiAl phase particularly at low densities, where small alumina particles had no impact on the composite's stiffness. The influence of the external pressure of 30 MPa seemed crucial for obtaining satisfactory stiffness for three kinds of the studied materials which were characterized by a high dense microstructure with a low number of isolated spherical pores.

6. MINER: software for phylogenetic motif identification.

PubMed

La, David; Livesay, Dennis R

2005-07-01

MINER is web-based software for phylogenetic motif (PM) identification. PMs are sequence regions (fragments) that conserve the overall familial phylogeny. PMs have been shown to correspond to a wide variety of catalytic regions, substrate-binding sites and protein interfaces, making them ideal functional site predictions. The MINER output provides an intuitive interface for interactive PM sequence analysis and structural visualization. The web implementation of MINER is freely available at http://www.pmap.csupomona.edu/MINER/. Source code is available to the academic community on request.

7. A designed DNA binding motif that recognizes extended sites and spans two adjacent major grooves†

PubMed Central

Rodríguez, Jéssica; Mosquera, Jesús; García-Fandiño, Rebeca; Vázquez, M. Eugenio; Mascareñas, José L.

2016-01-01

We report the rational design of a DNA-binding peptide construct composed of the DNA-contacting regions of two transcription factors (GCN4 and GAGA) linked through an AT-hook DNA anchor. The resulting chimera, which represents a new, non-natural DNA binding motif, binds with high affinity and selectivity to a long composite sequence of 13 base pairs (TCAT-AATT-GAGAG). PMID:27252825

8. Transcription factor motif quality assessment requires systematic comparative analysis

PubMed Central

Kibet, Caleb Kipkurui; Machanick, Philip

2016-01-01

Transcription factor (TF) binding site prediction remains a challenge in gene regulatory research due to degeneracy and potential variability in binding sites in the genome. Dozens of algorithms designed to learn binding models (motifs) have generated many motifs available in research papers with a subset making it to databases like JASPAR, UniPROBE and Transfac. The presence of many versions of motifs from the various databases for a single TF and the lack of a standardized assessment technique makes it difficult for biologists to make an appropriate choice of binding model and for algorithm developers to benchmark, test and improve on their models. In this study, we review and evaluate the approaches in use, highlight differences and demonstrate the difficulty of defining a standardized motif assessment approach. We review scoring functions, motif length, test data and the type of performance metrics used in prior studies as some of the factors that influence the outcome of a motif assessment. We show that the scoring functions and statistics used in motif assessment influence ranking of motifs in a TF-specific manner. We also show that TF binding specificity can vary by source of genomic binding data. We also demonstrate that information content of a motif is not in isolation a measure of motif quality but is influenced by TF binding behaviour. We conclude that there is a need for an easy-to-use tool that presents all available evidence for a comparative analysis. PMID:27092243

9. A general photonic crystal sensing motif: creatinine in bodily fluids.

PubMed

Sharma, Anjal C; Jana, Tushar; Kesavamoorthy, Rasu; Shi, Lianjun; Virji, Mohamed A; Finegold, David N; Asher, Sanford A

2004-03-10

We developed a new sensing motif for the detection and quantification of creatinine, which is an important small molecule marker of renal dysfunction. This novel sensor motif is based on our intelligent polymerized crystalline colloidal array (IPCCA) materials, in which a three-dimensional crystalline colloidal array (CCA) of monodisperse, highly charged polystyrene latex particles are polymerized within lightly cross-linked polyacrylamide hydrogels. These composite hydrogels are photonic crystals in which the embedded CCA diffracts visible light and appears intensely colored. Volume phase transitions of the hydrogel cause changes in the CCA lattice spacings which change the diffracted wavelength of light. We functionalized the hydrogel with two coupled recognition modules, a creatinine deiminase (CD) enzyme and a 2-nitrophenol (2NPh) titrating group. Creatinine within the gel is rapidly hydrolyzed by the CD enzyme in a reaction which releases OH(-). This elevates the steady-state pH within the hydrogel as compared to the exterior solution. In response, the 2NPh is deprotonated. The increased solubility of the phenolate species as compared to that of the neutral phenols causes a hydrogel swelling which red-shifts the IPCCA diffraction. This photonic crystal IPCCA senses physiologically relevant creatinine levels, with a detection limit of 6 microM, at physiological pH and salinity. This sensor also determines physiological levels of creatinine in human blood serum samples. This sensing technology platform is quite general. It may be used to fabricate photonic crystal sensors for any species for which there exists an enzyme which catalyzes it to release H(+) or OH(-). PMID:14995215

10. RNA motif discovery: a computational overview.

PubMed

Achar, Avinash; Sætrom, Pål

2015-01-01

Genomic studies have greatly expanded our knowledge of structural non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs). These RNAs fold into characteristic secondary structures and perform specific-structure dependent biological functions. Hence RNA secondary structure prediction is one of the most well studied problems in computational RNA biology. Comparative sequence analysis is one of the more reliable RNA structure prediction approaches as it exploits information of multiple related sequences to infer the consensus secondary structure. This class of methods essentially learns a global secondary structure from the input sequences. In this paper, we consider the more general problem of unearthing common local secondary structure based patterns from a set of related sequences. The input sequences for example could correspond to 3(') or 5(') untranslated regions of a set of orthologous genes and the unearthed local patterns could correspond to regulatory motifs found in these regions. These sequences could also correspond to in vitro selected RNA, genomic segments housing ncRNA genes from the same family and so on. Here, we give a detailed review of the various computational techniques proposed in literature attempting to solve this general motif discovery problem. We also give empirical comparisons of some of the current state of the art methods and point out future directions of research.

11. Annotating RNA motifs in sequences and alignments

PubMed Central

Gardner, Paul P.; Eldai, Hisham

2015-01-01

RNA performs a diverse array of important functions across all cellular life. These functions include important roles in translation, building translational machinery and maturing messenger RNA. More recent discoveries include the miRNAs and bacterial sRNAs that regulate gene expression, the thermosensors, riboswitches and other cis-regulatory elements that help prokaryotes sense their environment and eukaryotic piRNAs that suppress transposition. However, there can be a long period between the initial discovery of a RNA and determining its function. We present a bioinformatic approach to characterize RNA motifs, which are critical components of many RNA structure–function relationships. These motifs can, in some instances, provide researchers with functional hypotheses for uncharacterized RNAs. Moreover, we introduce a new profile-based database of RNA motifs—RMfam—and illustrate some applications for investigating the evolution and functional characterization of RNA. All the data and scripts associated with this work are available from: https://github.com/ppgardne/RMfam. PMID:25520192

12. The network motif architecture of dominance hierarchies.

PubMed

Shizuka, Daizaburo; McDonald, David B

2015-04-01

The widespread existence of dominance hierarchies has been a central puzzle in social evolution, yet we lack a framework for synthesizing the vast empirical data on hierarchy structure in animal groups. We applied network motif analysis to compare the structures of dominance networks from data published over the past 80 years. Overall patterns of dominance relations, including some aspects of non-interactions, were strikingly similar across disparate group types. For example, nearly all groups exhibited high frequencies of transitive triads, whereas cycles were very rare. Moreover, pass-along triads were rare, and double-dominant triads were common in most groups. These patterns did not vary in any systematic way across taxa, study settings (captive or wild) or group size. Two factors significantly affected network motif structure: the proportion of dyads that were observed to interact and the interaction rates of the top-ranked individuals. Thus, study design (i.e. how many interactions were observed) and the behaviour of key individuals in the group could explain much of the variations we see in social hierarchies across animals. Our findings confirm the ubiquity of dominance hierarchies across all animal systems, and demonstrate that network analysis provides new avenues for comparative analyses of social hierarchies. PMID:25762649

13. The network motif architecture of dominance hierarchies.

PubMed

Shizuka, Daizaburo; McDonald, David B

2015-04-01

The widespread existence of dominance hierarchies has been a central puzzle in social evolution, yet we lack a framework for synthesizing the vast empirical data on hierarchy structure in animal groups. We applied network motif analysis to compare the structures of dominance networks from data published over the past 80 years. Overall patterns of dominance relations, including some aspects of non-interactions, were strikingly similar across disparate group types. For example, nearly all groups exhibited high frequencies of transitive triads, whereas cycles were very rare. Moreover, pass-along triads were rare, and double-dominant triads were common in most groups. These patterns did not vary in any systematic way across taxa, study settings (captive or wild) or group size. Two factors significantly affected network motif structure: the proportion of dyads that were observed to interact and the interaction rates of the top-ranked individuals. Thus, study design (i.e. how many interactions were observed) and the behaviour of key individuals in the group could explain much of the variations we see in social hierarchies across animals. Our findings confirm the ubiquity of dominance hierarchies across all animal systems, and demonstrate that network analysis provides new avenues for comparative analyses of social hierarchies.

14. Structural motifs and the stability of fullerenes

SciTech Connect

Austin, S.J.; Fowler, P.W.; Manolopoulos, D.E.; Orlandi, G.; Zerbetto, F.

1995-05-18

Full geometry optimization has been performed within the semiempirical QCFF/PI model for the 1812 fullerene structural isomers of C{sub 60} formed by 12 pentagons and 20 hexagons. All are local minima on the potential energy hypersurface. Correlations of total energy with many structural motifs yield highly scattered diagrams, but some exhibit linear trends. Penalty and merit functions can be assigned to certain motifs: inclusion of a fused pentagon pair entails an average penalty of 111 kJ mol{sup -1}; a generic hexagon triple costs 23 kJ mol{sup -1}; a triple (open or fused) comprising a pentagon between two hexagonal neighbors gives a stabilization of 19 kJ mol{sup -1}. These results can be understood in terms of the curved nature of fullerene molecules: pentagons should be isolated to avoid sharp local curvature, hexagon triples are costly because they enforce local planarity and hence imply high curvature in another part of the fullerene surface, but hexagon-pentagon-hexagon triples allow the surface to distribute steric strain by warping. The best linear fit is found for H, the second moment of the hexagon-neighbor-index signature, which fits the total energies with a standard deviation of only 53 kJ mol{sup -1} and must be minimized for stability; this index too can be interpreted in terms of curvature. 26 refs., 5 figs.

15. Chromatin states modify network motifs contributing to cell-specific functions

PubMed Central

Zhao, Hongying; Liu, Tingting; Liu, Ling; Zhang, Guanxiong; Pang, Lin; Yu, Fulong; Fan, Huihui; Ping, Yanyan; Wang, Li; Xu, Chaohan; Xiao, Yun; Li, Xia

2015-01-01

Epigenetic modification can affect many important biological processes, such as cell proliferation and apoptosis. It can alter chromatin conformation and contribute to gene regulation. To investigate how chromatin states associated with network motifs, we assembled chromatin state-modified regulatory networks by combining 269 ChIP-seq data and chromatin states in four cell types. We found that many chromatin states were significantly associated with network motifs, especially for feedforward loops (FFLs). These distinct chromatin state compositions contribute to different expression levels and translational control of targets in FFLs. Strikingly, the chromatin state-modified FFLs were highly cell-specific and, to a large extent, determined cell-selective functions, such as the embryonic stem cell-specific bivalent modification-related FFL with an important role in poising developmentally important genes for expression. Besides, comparisons of chromatin state-modified FFLs between cancerous/stem and primary cell lines revealed specific type of chromatin state alterations that may act together with motif structural changes cooperatively contribute to cell-to-cell functional differences. Combination of these alterations could be helpful in prioritizing candidate genes. Together, this work highlights that a dynamic epigenetic dimension can help network motifs to control cell-specific functions. PMID:26169043

16. Network motifs: simple building blocks of complex networks.

PubMed

Milo, R; Shen-Orr, S; Itzkovitz, S; Kashtan, N; Chklovskii, D; Alon, U

2002-10-25

Complex networks are studied across many fields of science. To uncover their structural design principles, we defined "network motifs," patterns of interconnections occurring in complex networks at numbers that are significantly higher than those in randomized networks. We found such motifs in networks from biochemistry, neurobiology, ecology, and engineering. The motifs shared by ecological food webs were distinct from the motifs shared by the genetic networks of Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae or from those found in the World Wide Web. Similar motifs were found in networks that perform information processing, even though they describe elements as different as biomolecules within a cell and synaptic connections between neurons in Caenorhabditis elegans. Motifs may thus define universal classes of networks. This approach may uncover the basic building blocks of most networks. PMID:12399590

17. A Gibbs sampler for motif detection in phylogenetically close sequences

Siddharthan, Rahul; van Nimwegen, Erik; Siggia, Eric

2004-03-01

Genes are regulated by transcription factors that bind to DNA upstream of genes and recognize short conserved motifs'' in a random intergenic background''. Motif-finders such as the Gibbs sampler compare the probability of these short sequences being represented by weight matrices'' to the probability of their arising from the background null model'', and explore this space (analogous to a free-energy landscape). But closely related species may show conservation not because of functional sites but simply because they have not had sufficient time to diverge, so conventional methods will fail. We introduce a new Gibbs sampler algorithm that accounts for common ancestry when searching for motifs, while requiring minimal prior'' assumptions on the number and types of motifs, assessing the significance of detected motifs by tracking'' clusters that stay together. We apply this scheme to motif detection in sporulation-cycle genes in the yeast S. cerevisiae, using recent sequences of other closely-related Saccharomyces species.

18. Network Motifs: Simple Building Blocks of Complex Networks

Milo, R.; Shen-Orr, S.; Itzkovitz, S.; Kashtan, N.; Chklovskii, D.; Alon, U.

2002-10-01

Complex networks are studied across many fields of science. To uncover their structural design principles, we defined network motifs,'' patterns of interconnections occurring in complex networks at numbers that are significantly higher than those in randomized networks. We found such motifs in networks from biochemistry, neurobiology, ecology, and engineering. The motifs shared by ecological food webs were distinct from the motifs shared by the genetic networks of Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae or from those found in the World Wide Web. Similar motifs were found in networks that perform information processing, even though they describe elements as different as biomolecules within a cell and synaptic connections between neurons in Caenorhabditis elegans. Motifs may thus define universal classes of networks. This approach may uncover the basic building blocks of most networks.

19. Detecting DNA regulatory motifs by incorporating positional trendsin information content

SciTech Connect

Kechris, Katherina J.; van Zwet, Erik; Bickel, Peter J.; Eisen,Michael B.

2004-05-04

On the basis of the observation that conserved positions in transcription factor binding sites are often clustered together, we propose a simple extension to the model-based motif discovery methods. We assign position-specific prior distributions to the frequency parameters of the model, penalizing deviations from a specified conservation profile. Examples with both simulated and real data show that this extension helps discover motifs as the data become noisier or when there is a competing false motif.

20. STEME: a robust, accurate motif finder for large data sets.

PubMed

Reid, John E; Wernisch, Lorenz

2014-01-01

Motif finding is a difficult problem that has been studied for over 20 years. Some older popular motif finders are not suitable for analysis of the large data sets generated by next-generation sequencing. We recently published an efficient approximation (STEME) to the EM algorithm that is at the core of many motif finders such as MEME. This approximation allows the EM algorithm to be applied to large data sets. In this work we describe several efficient extensions to STEME that are based on the MEME algorithm. Together with the original STEME EM approximation, these extensions make STEME a fully-fledged motif finder with similar properties to MEME. We discuss the difficulty of objectively comparing motif finders. We show that STEME performs comparably to existing prominent discriminative motif finders, DREME and Trawler, on 13 sets of transcription factor binding data in mouse ES cells. We demonstrate the ability of STEME to find long degenerate motifs which these discriminative motif finders do not find. As part of our method, we extend an earlier method due to Nagarajan et al. for the efficient calculation of motif E-values. STEME's source code is available under an open source license and STEME is available via a web interface. PMID:24625410

1. Motif content comparison between monocot and dicot species

PubMed Central

Cserhati, Matyas

2015-01-01

While a number of DNA sequence motifs have been functionally characterized, the full repertoire of motifs in an organism (the motifome) is yet to be characterized. The present study wishes to widen the scope of motif content analysis in different monocot and dicot species that include both rice species, Brachypodium, corn, wheat as monocots and Arabidopsis, Lotus japonica, Medicago truncatula, and Populus tremula as dicots. All possible existing motifs were analyzed in different regions of genomes such as were found in different sets of sequences in these species: the whole genome, core proximal and distal promoters, 5′ and 3′ UTRs, and the 1st introns. Due to the increased number of species involved in this study compared to previous works, species relationships were analyzed based on the similarity of common motif content. Certain secondary structure elements were inferred in the genomes of these species as well as new unknown motifs. The distribution of 20 motifs common to the studied species were found to have a significantly larger occurrence within the promoters and 3′ UTRs of genes, both being regulatory regions. Motifs common to the promoter regions of japonica rice, Brachypodium, and corn were also found in a number of orthologous and paralogous genes. Some of our motifs were found to be complementary to miRNA elements in Brachypodium distachyon and japonica rice. PMID:26484161

2. Gibbs motif sampling: detection of bacterial outer membrane protein repeats.

PubMed Central

Neuwald, A. F.; Liu, J. S.; Lawrence, C. E.

1995-01-01

The detection and alignment of locally conserved regions (motifs) in multiple sequences can provide insight into protein structure, function, and evolution. A new Gibbs sampling algorithm is described that detects motif-encoding regions in sequences and optimally partitions them into distinct motif models; this is illustrated using a set of immunoglobulin fold proteins. When applied to sequences sharing a single motif, the sampler can be used to classify motif regions into related submodels, as is illustrated using helix-turn-helix DNA-binding proteins. Other statistically based procedures are described for searching a database for sequences matching motifs found by the sampler. When applied to a set of 32 very distantly related bacterial integral outer membrane proteins, the sampler revealed that they share a subtle, repetitive motif. Although BLAST (Altschul SF et al., 1990, J Mol Biol 215:403-410) fails to detect significant pairwise similarity between any of the sequences, the repeats present in these outer membrane proteins, taken as a whole, are highly significant (based on a generally applicable statistical test for motifs described here). Analysis of bacterial porins with known trimeric beta-barrel structure and related proteins reveals a similar repetitive motif corresponding to alternating membrane-spanning beta-strands. These beta-strands occur on the membrane interface (as opposed to the trimeric interface) of the beta-barrel. The broad conservation and structural location of these repeats suggests that they play important functional roles. PMID:8520488

3. An RNA motif that binds ATP

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sassanfar, M.; Szostak, J. W.

1993-01-01

RNAs that contain specific high-affinity binding sites for small molecule ligands immobilized on a solid support are present at a frequency of roughly one in 10(10)-10(11) in pools of random sequence RNA molecules. Here we describe a new in vitro selection procedure designed to ensure the isolation of RNAs that bind the ligand of interest in solution as well as on a solid support. We have used this method to isolate a remarkably small RNA motif that binds ATP, a substrate in numerous biological reactions and the universal biological high-energy intermediate. The selected ATP-binding RNAs contain a consensus sequence, embedded in a common secondary structure. The binding properties of ATP analogues and modified RNAs show that the binding interaction is characterized by a large number of close contacts between the ATP and RNA, and by a change in the conformation of the RNA.

4. Encoded expansion: an efficient algorithm to discover identical string motifs.

PubMed

Azmi, Aqil M; Al-Ssulami, Abdulrakeeb

2014-01-01

A major task in computational biology is the discovery of short recurring string patterns known as motifs. Most of the schemes to discover motifs are either stochastic or combinatorial in nature. Stochastic approaches do not guarantee finding the correct motifs, while the combinatorial schemes tend to have an exponential time complexity with respect to motif length. To alleviate the cost, the combinatorial approach exploits dynamic data structures such as trees or graphs. Recently (Karci (2009) Efficient automatic exact motif discovery algorithms for biological sequences, Expert Systems with Applications 36:7952-7963) devised a deterministic algorithm that finds all the identical copies of string motifs of all sizes [Formula: see text] in theoretical time complexity of [Formula: see text] and a space complexity of [Formula: see text] where [Formula: see text] is the length of the input sequence and [Formula: see text] is the length of the longest possible string motif. In this paper, we present a significant improvement on Karci's original algorithm. The algorithm that we propose reports all identical string motifs of sizes [Formula: see text] that occur at least [Formula: see text] times. Our algorithm starts with string motifs of size 2, and at each iteration it expands the candidate string motifs by one symbol throwing out those that occur less than [Formula: see text] times in the entire input sequence. We use a simple array and data encoding to achieve theoretical worst-case time complexity of [Formula: see text] and a space complexity of [Formula: see text] Encoding of the substrings can speed up the process of comparison between string motifs. Experimental results on random and real biological sequences confirm that our algorithm has indeed a linear time complexity and it is more scalable in terms of sequence length than the existing algorithms. PMID:24871320

5. Encoded Expansion: An Efficient Algorithm to Discover Identical String Motifs

PubMed Central

Azmi, Aqil M.; Al-Ssulami, Abdulrakeeb

2014-01-01

A major task in computational biology is the discovery of short recurring string patterns known as motifs. Most of the schemes to discover motifs are either stochastic or combinatorial in nature. Stochastic approaches do not guarantee finding the correct motifs, while the combinatorial schemes tend to have an exponential time complexity with respect to motif length. To alleviate the cost, the combinatorial approach exploits dynamic data structures such as trees or graphs. Recently (Karci (2009) Efficient automatic exact motif discovery algorithms for biological sequences, Expert Systems with Applications 36:7952–7963) devised a deterministic algorithm that finds all the identical copies of string motifs of all sizes in theoretical time complexity of and a space complexity of where is the length of the input sequence and is the length of the longest possible string motif. In this paper, we present a significant improvement on Karci's original algorithm. The algorithm that we propose reports all identical string motifs of sizes that occur at least times. Our algorithm starts with string motifs of size 2, and at each iteration it expands the candidate string motifs by one symbol throwing out those that occur less than times in the entire input sequence. We use a simple array and data encoding to achieve theoretical worst-case time complexity of and a space complexity of Encoding of the substrings can speed up the process of comparison between string motifs. Experimental results on random and real biological sequences confirm that our algorithm has indeed a linear time complexity and it is more scalable in terms of sequence length than the existing algorithms. PMID:24871320

6. Encoded expansion: an efficient algorithm to discover identical string motifs.

PubMed

Azmi, Aqil M; Al-Ssulami, Abdulrakeeb

2014-01-01

A major task in computational biology is the discovery of short recurring string patterns known as motifs. Most of the schemes to discover motifs are either stochastic or combinatorial in nature. Stochastic approaches do not guarantee finding the correct motifs, while the combinatorial schemes tend to have an exponential time complexity with respect to motif length. To alleviate the cost, the combinatorial approach exploits dynamic data structures such as trees or graphs. Recently (Karci (2009) Efficient automatic exact motif discovery algorithms for biological sequences, Expert Systems with Applications 36:7952-7963) devised a deterministic algorithm that finds all the identical copies of string motifs of all sizes [Formula: see text] in theoretical time complexity of [Formula: see text] and a space complexity of [Formula: see text] where [Formula: see text] is the length of the input sequence and [Formula: see text] is the length of the longest possible string motif. In this paper, we present a significant improvement on Karci's original algorithm. The algorithm that we propose reports all identical string motifs of sizes [Formula: see text] that occur at least [Formula: see text] times. Our algorithm starts with string motifs of size 2, and at each iteration it expands the candidate string motifs by one symbol throwing out those that occur less than [Formula: see text] times in the entire input sequence. We use a simple array and data encoding to achieve theoretical worst-case time complexity of [Formula: see text] and a space complexity of [Formula: see text] Encoding of the substrings can speed up the process of comparison between string motifs. Experimental results on random and real biological sequences confirm that our algorithm has indeed a linear time complexity and it is more scalable in terms of sequence length than the existing algorithms.

7. Mitochondrial and Y chromosome haplotype motifs as diagnostic markers of Jewish ancestry: a reconsideration

PubMed Central

Tofanelli, Sergio; Taglioli, Luca; Bertoncini, Stefania; Francalacci, Paolo; Klyosov, Anatole; Pagani, Luca

2014-01-01

Several authors have proposed haplotype motifs based on site variants at the mitochondrial genome (mtDNA) and the non-recombining portion of the Y chromosome (NRY) to trace the genealogies of Jewish people. Here, we analyzed their main approaches and test the feasibility of adopting motifs as ancestry markers through construction of a large database of mtDNA and NRY haplotypes from public genetic genealogical repositories. We verified the reliability of Jewish ancestry prediction based on the Cohen and Levite Modal Haplotypes in their “classical” 6 STR marker format or in the “extended” 12 STR format, as well as four founder mtDNA lineages (HVS-I segments) accounting for about 40% of the current population of Ashkenazi Jews. For this purpose we compared haplotype composition in individuals of self-reported Jewish ancestry with the rest of European, African or Middle Eastern samples, to test for non-random association of ethno-geographic groups and haplotypes. Overall, NRY and mtDNA based motifs, previously reported to differentiate between groups, were found to be more represented in Jewish compared to non-Jewish groups. However, this seems to stem from common ancestors of Jewish lineages being rather recent respect to ancestors of non-Jewish lineages with the same “haplotype signatures.” Moreover, the polyphyly of haplotypes which contain the proposed motifs and the misuse of constant mutation rates heavily affected previous attempts to correctly dating the origin of common ancestries. Accordingly, our results stress the limitations of using the above haplotype motifs as reliable Jewish ancestry predictors and show its inadequacy for forensic or genealogical purposes. PMID:25431579

8. Mitochondrial and Y chromosome haplotype motifs as diagnostic markers of Jewish ancestry: a reconsideration.

PubMed

Tofanelli, Sergio; Taglioli, Luca; Bertoncini, Stefania; Francalacci, Paolo; Klyosov, Anatole; Pagani, Luca

2014-01-01

Several authors have proposed haplotype motifs based on site variants at the mitochondrial genome (mtDNA) and the non-recombining portion of the Y chromosome (NRY) to trace the genealogies of Jewish people. Here, we analyzed their main approaches and test the feasibility of adopting motifs as ancestry markers through construction of a large database of mtDNA and NRY haplotypes from public genetic genealogical repositories. We verified the reliability of Jewish ancestry prediction based on the Cohen and Levite Modal Haplotypes in their "classical" 6 STR marker format or in the "extended" 12 STR format, as well as four founder mtDNA lineages (HVS-I segments) accounting for about 40% of the current population of Ashkenazi Jews. For this purpose we compared haplotype composition in individuals of self-reported Jewish ancestry with the rest of European, African or Middle Eastern samples, to test for non-random association of ethno-geographic groups and haplotypes. Overall, NRY and mtDNA based motifs, previously reported to differentiate between groups, were found to be more represented in Jewish compared to non-Jewish groups. However, this seems to stem from common ancestors of Jewish lineages being rather recent respect to ancestors of non-Jewish lineages with the same "haplotype signatures." Moreover, the polyphyly of haplotypes which contain the proposed motifs and the misuse of constant mutation rates heavily affected previous attempts to correctly dating the origin of common ancestries. Accordingly, our results stress the limitations of using the above haplotype motifs as reliable Jewish ancestry predictors and show its inadequacy for forensic or genealogical purposes. PMID:25431579

9. ELM: the status of the 2010 eukaryotic linear motif resource.

PubMed

Gould, Cathryn M; Diella, Francesca; Via, Allegra; Puntervoll, Pål; Gemünd, Christine; Chabanis-Davidson, Sophie; Michael, Sushama; Sayadi, Ahmed; Bryne, Jan Christian; Chica, Claudia; Seiler, Markus; Davey, Norman E; Haslam, Niall; Weatheritt, Robert J; Budd, Aidan; Hughes, Tim; Pas, Jakub; Rychlewski, Leszek; Travé, Gilles; Aasland, Rein; Helmer-Citterich, Manuela; Linding, Rune; Gibson, Toby J

2010-01-01

Linear motifs are short segments of multidomain proteins that provide regulatory functions independently of protein tertiary structure. Much of intracellular signalling passes through protein modifications at linear motifs. Many thousands of linear motif instances, most notably phosphorylation sites, have now been reported. Although clearly very abundant, linear motifs are difficult to predict de novo in protein sequences due to the difficulty of obtaining robust statistical assessments. The ELM resource at http://elm.eu.org/ provides an expanding knowledge base, currently covering 146 known motifs, with annotation that includes >1300 experimentally reported instances. ELM is also an exploratory tool for suggesting new candidates of known linear motifs in proteins of interest. Information about protein domains, protein structure and native disorder, cellular and taxonomic contexts is used to reduce or deprecate false positive matches. Results are graphically displayed in a 'Bar Code' format, which also displays known instances from homologous proteins through a novel 'Instance Mapper' protocol based on PHI-BLAST. ELM server output provides links to the ELM annotation as well as to a number of remote resources. Using the links, researchers can explore the motifs, proteins, complex structures and associated literature to evaluate whether candidate motifs might be worth experimental investigation. PMID:19920119

10. DETAIL VIEW, MAIN ENTRANCE GATES, SHOWING A WINGED HOURGLASS MOTIF, ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

DETAIL VIEW, MAIN ENTRANCE GATES, SHOWING A WINGED HOURGLASS MOTIF, WHICH REFERS TO THE QUICK PASSAGE OF TIME AND THE SHORTNESS OF HUMAN LIFE. USE OF THIS MOTIF WAS A CARRYOVER FROM THE MCARTHUR GATES. - Woodlands Cemetery, 4000 Woodlands Avenue, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA

11. Role of GxxxG Motifs in Transmembrane Domain Interactions.

PubMed

Teese, Mark G; Langosch, Dieter

2015-08-25

Transmembrane (TM) helices of integral membrane proteins can facilitate strong and specific noncovalent protein-protein interactions. Mutagenesis and structural analyses have revealed numerous examples in which the interaction between TM helices of single-pass membrane proteins is dependent on a GxxxG or (small)xxx(small) motif. It is therefore tempting to use the presence of these simple motifs as an indicator of TM helix interactions. In this Current Topic review, we point out that these motifs are quite common, with more than 50% of single-pass TM domains containing a (small)xxx(small) motif. However, the actual interaction strength of motif-containing helices depends strongly on sequence context and membrane properties. In addition, recent studies have revealed several GxxxG-containing TM domains that interact via alternative interfaces involving hydrophobic, polar, aromatic, or even ionizable residues that do not form recognizable motifs. In multipass membrane proteins, GxxxG motifs can be important for protein folding, and not just oligomerization. Our current knowledge thus suggests that the presence of a GxxxG motif alone is a weak predictor of protein dimerization in the membrane. PMID:26244771

12. The phenomenon of astral motifs on late mediaeval tombstones

Mijatović, V.; Ninković, S.; Vemić, D.

2003-10-01

The authors study astral motifs present on some mediaeval tombstones found in present-day Serbia and Montenegro and in the neighbouring countries (especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina). The authors discern some important astral motifs, explain them and present a short review concerning their frequency.

13. Identifying novel sequence variants of RNA 3D motifs

PubMed Central

Zirbel, Craig L.; Roll, James; Sweeney, Blake A.; Petrov, Anton I.; Pirrung, Meg; Leontis, Neocles B.

2015-01-01

Predicting RNA 3D structure from sequence is a major challenge in biophysics. An important sub-goal is accurately identifying recurrent 3D motifs from RNA internal and hairpin loop sequences extracted from secondary structure (2D) diagrams. We have developed and validated new probabilistic models for 3D motif sequences based on hybrid Stochastic Context-Free Grammars and Markov Random Fields (SCFG/MRF). The SCFG/MRF models are constructed using atomic-resolution RNA 3D structures. To parameterize each model, we use all instances of each motif found in the RNA 3D Motif Atlas and annotations of pairwise nucleotide interactions generated by the FR3D software. Isostericity relations between non-Watson–Crick basepairs are used in scoring sequence variants. SCFG techniques model nested pairs and insertions, while MRF ideas handle crossing interactions and base triples. We use test sets of randomly-generated sequences to set acceptance and rejection thresholds for each motif group and thus control the false positive rate. Validation was carried out by comparing results for four motif groups to RMDetect. The software developed for sequence scoring (JAR3D) is structured to automatically incorporate new motifs as they accumulate in the RNA 3D Motif Atlas when new structures are solved and is available free for download. PMID:26130723

14. Automated discovery of active motifs in multiple RNA secondary structures

SciTech Connect

Wang, J.T.L.; Chang, Chia-Yo; Shapiro, B.A.

1996-12-31

In this paper we present a method for discovering approximately common motifs (also known as active motifs) in multiple RNA secondary structures. The secondary structures can be represented as ordered trees (i.e., the order among siblings matters). Motifs in these trees are connected subgraphs that can differ in both substitutions and deletions/insertions. The proposed method consists of two steps: (1) find candidate motifs in a small sample of the secondary structures; (2) search all of the secondary structures to determine how frequently these motifs occur (within the allowed approximation) in the secondary structures. To reduce the running time, we develop two optimization heuristics based on sampling and pattern matching techniques. Experimental results obtained by running these algorithms on both generated data and RNA secondary structures show the good performance of the algorithms. To demonstrate the utility of our algorithms, we discuss their applications to conducting the phylogenetic study of RNA sequences obtained from GenBank.

15. De Novo Regulatory Motif Discovery Identifies Significant Motifs in Promoters of Five Classes of Plant Dehydrin Genes

PubMed Central

Zolotarov, Yevgen; Strömvik, Martina

2015-01-01

Plants accumulate dehydrins in response to osmotic stresses. Dehydrins are divided into five different classes, which are thought to be regulated in different manners. To better understand differences in transcriptional regulation of the five dehydrin classes, de novo motif discovery was performed on 350 dehydrin promoter sequences from a total of 51 plant genomes. Overrepresented motifs were identified in the promoters of five dehydrin classes. The Kn dehydrin promoters contain motifs linked with meristem specific expression, as well as motifs linked with cold/dehydration and abscisic acid response. KS dehydrin promoters contain a motif with a GATA core. SKn and YnSKn dehydrin promoters contain motifs that match elements connected with cold/dehydration, abscisic acid and light response. YnKn dehydrin promoters contain motifs that match abscisic acid and light response elements, but not cold/dehydration response elements. Conserved promoter motifs are present in the dehydrin classes and across different plant lineages, indicating that dehydrin gene regulation is likely also conserved. PMID:26114291

16. Tripartite motif 32 prevents pathological cardiac hypertrophy

PubMed Central

Huang, Jia; Ji, Yanxiao; Zhang, Xiaojing; Wang, Pixiao; Deng, Keqiong; Jiang, Xi; Ma, Genshan

2016-01-01

TRIM32 (tripartite motif 32) is widely accepted to be an E3 ligase that interacts with and eventually ubiquitylates multiple substrates. TRIM32 mutants have been associated with LGMD-2H (limb girdle muscular dystrophy 2H). However, whether TRIM32 is involved in cardiac hypertrophy induced by biomechanical stresses and neurohumoral mediators remains unclear. We generated mice and isolated NRCMs (neonatal rat cardiomyocytes) that overexpressed or were deficient in TRIM32 to investigate the effect of TRIM32 on AB (aortic banding) or AngII (angiotensin II)-mediated cardiac hypertrophy. Echocardiography and both pathological and molecular analyses were used to determine the extent of cardiac hypertrophy and subsequent fibrosis. Our results showed that overexpression of TRIM32 in the heart significantly alleviated the hypertrophic response induced by pressure overload, whereas TRIM32 deficiency dramatically aggravated pathological cardiac remodelling. Similar results were also found in cultured NRCMs incubated with AngII. Mechanistically, the present study suggests that TRIM32 exerts cardioprotective action by interruption of Akt- but not MAPK (mitogen-dependent protein kinase)-dependent signalling pathways. Additionally, inactivation of Akt by LY294002 offset the exacerbated hypertrophic response induced by AB in TRIM32-deficient mice. In conclusion, the present study indicates that TRIM32 plays a protective role in AB-induced pathological cardiac remodelling by blocking Akt-dependent signalling. Therefore TRIM32 could be a novel therapeutic target for the prevention of cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure. PMID:26884348

17. Triadic motifs in the dependence networks of virtual societies.

PubMed

Xie, Wen-Jie; Li, Ming-Xia; Jiang, Zhi-Qiang; Zhou, Wei-Xing

2014-06-10

In friendship networks, individuals have different numbers of friends, and the closeness or intimacy between an individual and her friends is heterogeneous. Using a statistical filtering method to identify relationships about who depends on whom, we construct dependence networks (which are directed) from weighted friendship networks of avatars in more than two hundred virtual societies of a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). We investigate the evolution of triadic motifs in dependence networks. Several metrics show that the virtual societies evolved through a transient stage in the first two to three weeks and reached a relatively stable stage. We find that the unidirectional loop motif (M9) is underrepresented and does not appear, open motifs are also underrepresented, while other close motifs are overrepresented. We also find that, for most motifs, the overall level difference of the three avatars in the same motif is significantly lower than average, whereas the sum of ranks is only slightly larger than average. Our findings show that avatars' social status plays an important role in the formation of triadic motifs.

18. Triadic motifs in the dependence networks of virtual societies

Xie, Wen-Jie; Li, Ming-Xia; Jiang, Zhi-Qiang; Zhou, Wei-Xing

2014-06-01

In friendship networks, individuals have different numbers of friends, and the closeness or intimacy between an individual and her friends is heterogeneous. Using a statistical filtering method to identify relationships about who depends on whom, we construct dependence networks (which are directed) from weighted friendship networks of avatars in more than two hundred virtual societies of a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). We investigate the evolution of triadic motifs in dependence networks. Several metrics show that the virtual societies evolved through a transient stage in the first two to three weeks and reached a relatively stable stage. We find that the unidirectional loop motif (M9) is underrepresented and does not appear, open motifs are also underrepresented, while other close motifs are overrepresented. We also find that, for most motifs, the overall level difference of the three avatars in the same motif is significantly lower than average, whereas the sum of ranks is only slightly larger than average. Our findings show that avatars' social status plays an important role in the formation of triadic motifs.

19. Triadic motifs in the dependence networks of virtual societies.

PubMed

Xie, Wen-Jie; Li, Ming-Xia; Jiang, Zhi-Qiang; Zhou, Wei-Xing

2014-01-01

In friendship networks, individuals have different numbers of friends, and the closeness or intimacy between an individual and her friends is heterogeneous. Using a statistical filtering method to identify relationships about who depends on whom, we construct dependence networks (which are directed) from weighted friendship networks of avatars in more than two hundred virtual societies of a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). We investigate the evolution of triadic motifs in dependence networks. Several metrics show that the virtual societies evolved through a transient stage in the first two to three weeks and reached a relatively stable stage. We find that the unidirectional loop motif (M9) is underrepresented and does not appear, open motifs are also underrepresented, while other close motifs are overrepresented. We also find that, for most motifs, the overall level difference of the three avatars in the same motif is significantly lower than average, whereas the sum of ranks is only slightly larger than average. Our findings show that avatars' social status plays an important role in the formation of triadic motifs. PMID:24912755

20. Early illness recognition using frequent motif discovery.

PubMed

Hajihashemi, Zahra; Popescu, Mihail

2015-08-01

Living alone in their own residence, older adults are at risk for late assessment of physical or cognitive changes due to many factors such as their impression that such changes are simply a normal part of aging or their reluctance to admit to a problem. This paper describes an early illness recognition framework using sensor network technology to identify the health trajectory of older adults reflected in patterns of day-today activities. Describing the behavior of older adults could help clinicians to identify those at the greatest risk for functional decline and adverse events. The proposed framework, denoted as Abnormal Frequent Activity Pattern (AFAP), is based on the identification of known past abnormal frequent activities in current sensor data. More specifically, AFAP declares a day abnormal when past frequent abnormal behavior patterns, not found during normal days, are discovered in the current activity data. While AFAP requires the labeling of past days as normal/abnormal, it doesn't need specific activity identification. Frequent activity patterns (FAP) are found using MEME, a bioinformatics motif detection algorithm. To validate our approach, we used data obtained from TigerPlace, an aging in place community situated in Columbia, MO, where apartments are equipped with sensor networks (motion, bed and depth sensors). A retrospective multiple case study (N=3) design was used to quantify the in-home older adult's daily routines, over a period of two weeks. Within-person variability of routine activities may be used as a new predictor in the study of health trajectories of older adults. PMID:26737096

1. Targeting functional motifs of a protein family

2016-10-01

The structural organization of a protein family is investigated by devising a method based on the random matrix theory (RMT), which uses the physiochemical properties of the amino acid with multiple sequence alignment. A graphical method to represent protein sequences using physiochemical properties is devised that gives a fast, easy, and informative way of comparing the evolutionary distances between protein sequences. A correlation matrix associated with each property is calculated, where the noise reduction and information filtering is done using RMT involving an ensemble of Wishart matrices. The analysis of the eigenvalue statistics of the correlation matrix for the β -lactamase family shows the universal features as observed in the Gaussian orthogonal ensemble (GOE). The property-based approach captures the short- as well as the long-range correlation (approximately following GOE) between the eigenvalues, whereas the previous approach (treating amino acids as characters) gives the usual short-range correlations, while the long-range correlations are the same as that of an uncorrelated series. The distribution of the eigenvector components for the eigenvalues outside the bulk (RMT bound) deviates significantly from RMT observations and contains important information about the system. The information content of each eigenvector of the correlation matrix is quantified by introducing an entropic estimate, which shows that for the β -lactamase family the smallest eigenvectors (low eigenmodes) are highly localized as well as informative. These small eigenvectors when processed gives clusters involving positions that have well-defined biological and structural importance matching with experiments. The approach is crucial for the recognition of structural motifs as shown in β -lactamase (and other families) and selectively identifies the important positions for targets to deactivate (activate) the enzymatic actions.

2. An autoinhibited conformation of LGN reveals a distinct interaction mode between GoLoco motifs and TPR motifs.

PubMed

Pan, Zhu; Zhu, Jinwei; Shang, Yuan; Wei, Zhiyi; Jia, Min; Xia, Caihao; Wen, Wenyu; Wang, Wenning; Zhang, Mingjie

2013-06-01

LGN plays essential roles in asymmetric cell divisions via its N-terminal TPR-motif-mediated binding to mInsc and NuMA. This scaffolding activity requires the release of the autoinhibited conformation of LGN by binding of Gα(i) to its C-terminal GoLoco (GL) motifs. The interaction between the GL and TPR motifs of LGN represents a distinct GL/target binding mode with an unknown mechanism. Here, we show that two consecutive GL motifs of LGN form a minimal TPR-motif-binding unit. GL12 and GL34 bind to TPR0-3 and TPR4-7, respectively. The crystal structure of a truncated LGN reveals that GL34 forms a pair of parallel α helices and binds to the concave surface of TPR4-7, thereby preventing LGN from binding to other targets. Importantly, the GLs bind to TPR motifs with a mode distinct from that observed in the GL/Gα(i)·GDP complexes. Our results also indicate that multiple and orphan GL motif proteins likely respond to G proteins with distinct mechanisms.

3. Thermodynamic Features of Structural Motifs Formed by β-L-RNA.

PubMed

Szabat, Marta; Gudanis, Dorota; Kotkowiak, Weronika; Gdaniec, Zofia; Kierzek, Ryszard; Pasternak, Anna

2016-01-01

This is the first report to provide comprehensive thermodynamic and structural data concerning duplex, hairpin, quadruplex and i-motif structures in β-L-RNA series. Herein we confirm that, within the limits of experimental error, the thermodynamic stability of enantiomeric structural motifs is the same as that of naturally occurring D-RNA counterparts. In addition, formation of D-RNA/L-RNA heterochiral duplexes is also observed; however, their thermodynamic stability is significantly reduced in reference to homochiral D-RNA duplexes. The presence of three locked nucleic acid (LNA) residues within the D-RNA strand diminishes the negative effect of the enantiomeric, complementary L-RNA strand in the formation of heterochiral RNA duplexes. Similar behavior is also observed for heterochiral LNA-2'-O-methyl-D-RNA/L-RNA duplexes. The formation of heterochiral duplexes was confirmed by 1H NMR spectroscopy. The CD curves of homochiral L-RNA structural motifs are always reversed, whereas CD curves of heterochiral duplexes present individual features dependent on the composition of chiral strands.

4. A million peptide motifs for the molecular biologist.

PubMed

Tompa, Peter; Davey, Norman E; Gibson, Toby J; Babu, M Madan

2014-07-17

A molecular description of functional modules in the cell is the focus of many high-throughput studies in the postgenomic era. A large portion of biomolecular interactions in virtually all cellular processes is mediated by compact interaction modules, referred to as peptide motifs. Such motifs are typically less than ten residues in length, occur within intrinsically disordered regions, and are recognized and/or posttranslationally modified by structured domains of the interacting partner. In this review, we suggest that there might be over a million instances of peptide motifs in the human proteome. While this staggering number suggests that peptide motifs are numerous and the most understudied functional module in the cell, it also holds great opportunities for new discoveries. PMID:25038412

5. Local graph alignment and motif search in biological networks

Berg, Johannes; Lässig, Michael

2004-10-01

Interaction networks are of central importance in postgenomic molecular biology, with increasing amounts of data becoming available by high-throughput methods. Examples are gene regulatory networks or protein interaction maps. The main challenge in the analysis of these data is to read off biological functions from the topology of the network. Topological motifs, i.e., patterns occurring repeatedly at different positions in the network, have recently been identified as basic modules of molecular information processing. In this article, we discuss motifs derived from families of mutually similar but not necessarily identical patterns. We establish a statistical model for the occurrence of such motifs, from which we derive a scoring function for their statistical significance. Based on this scoring function, we develop a search algorithm for topological motifs called graph alignment, a procedure with some analogies to sequence alignment. The algorithm is applied to the gene regulation network of Escherichia coli.

6. DETAIL OF CORNICE MOULDING WITH RAM'S HEAD MOTIF. EIGHT SHADES ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

DETAIL OF CORNICE MOULDING WITH RAM'S HEAD MOTIF. EIGHT SHADES OF GOLD LEAF AND BURNISHED GOLD LEAF WERE USED FOR THE INTERIOR FINISHES. - Anaconda Historic District, Washoe Theater, 305 Main Street, Anaconda, Deer Lodge County, MT

7. 10. DETAIL OF CORNICE MOULDING WITH RAM'S HEAD MOTIF. EIGHT ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

10. DETAIL OF CORNICE MOULDING WITH RAM'S HEAD MOTIF. EIGHT SHADES OF GOLD LEAF AND BURNISHED GOLD LEAF WERE USED FOR THE INTERIOR FINISHES - Anaconda Historic District, Washoe Theater, 305 Main Street, Anaconda, Deer Lodge County, MT

8. Transmembrane helix dimerization: beyond the search for sequence motifs.

PubMed

Li, Edwin; Wimley, William C; Hristova, Kalina

2012-02-01

Studies of the dimerization of transmembrane (TM) helices have been ongoing for many years now, and have provided clues to the fundamental principles behind membrane protein (MP) folding. Our understanding of TM helix dimerization has been dominated by the idea that sequence motifs, simple recognizable amino acid sequences that drive lateral interaction, can be used to explain and predict the lateral interactions between TM helices in membrane proteins. But as more and more unique interacting helices are characterized, it is becoming clear that the sequence motif paradigm is incomplete. Experimental evidence suggests that the search for sequence motifs, as mediators of TM helix dimerization, cannot solve the membrane protein folding problem alone. Here we review the current understanding in the field, as it has evolved from the paradigm of sequence motifs into a view in which the interactions between TM helices are much more complex. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Membrane protein structure and function.

9. Macrocyclization of the ATCUN Motif Controls Metal Binding and Catalysis

PubMed Central

Neupane, Kosh P.; Aldous, Amanda R.; Kritzer, Joshua A.

2013-01-01

We report the design, synthesis and characterization of macrocyclic analogs of the amino-terminal copper and nickel binding (ATCUN) motif. These macrocycles have altered pH transitions for metal binding, and unlike linear ATCUN motifs, the optimal cyclic peptide 1 binds Cu(II) selectively over Ni(II) at physiological pH. UV-vis and EPR spectroscopy showed that cyclic peptide 1 can coordinate Cu(II) or Ni(II) in a square planar geometry. Metal binding titration and ESI-MS data revealed a 1:1 binding stoichiometry. Macrocyclization allows for coordination of Cu(II) or Ni(II) as in linear ATCUN motifs, but with enhanced DNA cleavage by the Cu(II)-1 complex relative to linear analogs. The Cu(II)-1 complex was also capable of producing diffusible hydroxyl radicals, which is unique among ATCUN motifs and most other common copper(II) chelators. PMID:23421754

10. Direct vs 2-stage approaches to structured motif finding

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background The notion of DNA motif is a mathematical abstraction used to model regions of the DNA (known as Transcription Factor Binding Sites, or TFBSs) that are bound by a given Transcription Factor to regulate gene expression or repression. In turn, DNA structured motifs are a mathematical counterpart that models sets of TFBSs that work in concert in the gene regulations processes of higher eukaryotic organisms. Typically, a structured motif is composed of an ordered set of isolated (or simple) motifs, separated by a variable, but somewhat constrained number of “irrelevant” base-pairs. Discovering structured motifs in a set of DNA sequences is a computationally hard problem that has been addressed by a number of authors using either a direct approach, or via the preliminary identification and successive combination of simple motifs. Results We describe a computational tool, named SISMA, for the de-novo discovery of structured motifs in a set of DNA sequences. SISMA is an exact, enumerative algorithm, meaning that it finds all the motifs conforming to the specifications. It does so in two stages: first it discovers all the possible component simple motifs, then combines them in a way that respects the given constraints. We developed SISMA mainly with the aim of understanding the potential benefits of such a 2-stage approach w.r.t. direct methods. In fact, no 2-stage software was available for the general problem of structured motif discovery, but only a few tools that solved restricted versions of the problem. We evaluated SISMA against other published tools on a comprehensive benchmark made of both synthetic and real biological datasets. In a significant number of cases, SISMA outperformed the competitors, exhibiting a good performance also in most of the cases in which it was inferior. Conclusions A reflection on the results obtained lead us to conclude that a 2-stage approach can be implemented with many advantages over direct approaches. Some of these

11. Network motif-based method for identifying coronary artery disease

PubMed Central

LI, YIN; CONG, YAN; ZHAO, YUN

2016-01-01

12. Discovering Motifs in Biological Sequences Using the Micron Automata Processor.

PubMed

Roy, Indranil; Aluru, Srinivas

2016-01-01

Finding approximately conserved sequences, called motifs, across multiple DNA or protein sequences is an important problem in computational biology. In this paper, we consider the (l, d) motif search problem of identifying one or more motifs of length l present in at least q of the n given sequences, with each occurrence differing from the motif in at most d substitutions. The problem is known to be NP-complete, and the largest solved instance reported to date is (26,11). We propose a novel algorithm for the (l,d) motif search problem using streaming execution over a large set of non-deterministic finite automata (NFA). This solution is designed to take advantage of the micron automata processor, a new technology close to deployment that can simultaneously execute multiple NFA in parallel. We demonstrate the capability for solving much larger instances of the (l, d) motif search problem using the resources available within a single automata processor board, by estimating run-times for problem instances (39,18) and (40,17). The paper serves as a useful guide to solving problems using this new accelerator technology. PMID:26886735

13. An experimental test of a fundamental food web motif.

PubMed

Rip, Jason M K; McCann, Kevin S; Lynn, Denis H; Fawcett, Sonia

2010-06-01

Large-scale changes to the world's ecosystem are resulting in the deterioration of biostructure-the complex web of species interactions that make up ecological communities. A difficult, yet crucial task is to identify food web structures, or food web motifs, that are the building blocks of this baroque network of interactions. Once identified, these food web motifs can then be examined through experiments and theory to provide mechanistic explanations for how structure governs ecosystem stability. Here, we synthesize recent ecological research to show that generalist consumers coupling resources with different interaction strengths, is one such motif. This motif amazingly occurs across an enormous range of spatial scales, and so acts to distribute coupled weak and strong interactions throughout food webs. We then perform an experiment that illustrates the importance of this motif to ecological stability. We find that weak interactions coupled to strong interactions by generalist consumers dampen strong interaction strengths and increase community stability. This study takes a critical step by isolating a common food web motif and through clear, experimental manipulation, identifies the fundamental stabilizing consequences of this structure for ecological communities. PMID:20129988

14. An experimental test of a fundamental food web motif

PubMed Central

Rip, Jason M. K.; McCann, Kevin S.; Lynn, Denis H.; Fawcett, Sonia

2010-01-01

Large-scale changes to the world's ecosystem are resulting in the deterioration of biostructure—the complex web of species interactions that make up ecological communities. A difficult, yet crucial task is to identify food web structures, or food web motifs, that are the building blocks of this baroque network of interactions. Once identified, these food web motifs can then be examined through experiments and theory to provide mechanistic explanations for how structure governs ecosystem stability. Here, we synthesize recent ecological research to show that generalist consumers coupling resources with different interaction strengths, is one such motif. This motif amazingly occurs across an enormous range of spatial scales, and so acts to distribute coupled weak and strong interactions throughout food webs. We then perform an experiment that illustrates the importance of this motif to ecological stability. We find that weak interactions coupled to strong interactions by generalist consumers dampen strong interaction strengths and increase community stability. This study takes a critical step by isolating a common food web motif and through clear, experimental manipulation, identifies the fundamental stabilizing consequences of this structure for ecological communities. PMID:20129988

15. cWINNOWER Algorithm for Finding Fuzzy DNA Motifs

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Liang, Shoudan

2003-01-01

The cWINNOWER algorithm detects fuzzy motifs in DNA sequences rich in protein-binding signals. A signal is defined as any short nucleotide pattern having up to d mutations differing from a motif of length l. The algorithm finds such motifs if multiple mutated copies of the motif (i.e., the signals) are present in the DNA sequence in sufficient abundance. The cWINNOWER algorithm substantially improves the sensitivity of the winnower method of Pevzner and Sze by imposing a consensus constraint, enabling it to detect much weaker signals. We studied the minimum number of detectable motifs qc as a function of sequence length N for random sequences. We found that qc increases linearly with N for a fast version of the algorithm based on counting three-member sub-cliques. Imposing consensus constraints reduces qc, by a factor of three in this case, which makes the algorithm dramatically more sensitive. Our most sensitive algorithm, which counts four-member sub-cliques, needs a minimum of only 13 signals to detect motifs in a sequence of length N = 12000 for (l,d) = (15,4).

16. Survey on the PABC recognition motif PAM2.

PubMed

Albrecht, Mario; Lengauer, Thomas

2004-03-26

The PABP-interacting motif PAM2 has been identified in various eukaryotic proteins as an important binding site for the PABC domain. This domain is contained in homologs of the poly(A)-binding protein PABP and the ubiquitin-protein ligase HYD. Despite the importance of the PAM2 motif, a comprehensive analysis of its occurrence in different proteins has been missing. Using iterated sequence profile searches, we obtained an extensive list of proteins carrying the PAM2 motif. We discuss their functional context and domain architecture, which often consists of RNA-binding domains. Our list of PAM2 motif proteins includes eukaryotic homologs of eRF3/GSPT1/2, PAIP1/2, Tob1/2, Ataxin-2, RBP37, RBP1, Blackjack, HELZ, TPRD, USP10, ERD15, C1D4.14, and the viral protease P29. The identification of the PAM2 motif in as yet uncharacterized proteins can give valuable hints with respect to their cellular function and potential interaction partners and suggests further experimentation. It is also striking that the PAM2 motif appears to occur solely outside globular protein domains.

17. Finding specific RNA motifs: Function in a zeptomole world?

PubMed Central

KNIGHT, ROB; YARUS, MICHAEL

2003-01-01

We have developed a new method for estimating the abundance of any modular (piecewise) RNA motif within a longer random region. We have used this method to estimate the size of the active motifs available to modern SELEX experiments (picomoles of unique sequences) and to a plausible RNA World (zeptomoles of unique sequences: 1 zmole = 602 sequences). Unexpectedly, activities such as specific isoleucine binding are almost certainly present in zeptomoles of molecules, and even ribozymes such as self-cleavage motifs may appear (depending on assumptions about the minimal structures). The number of specified nucleotides is not the only important determinant of a motif’s rarity: The number of modules into which it is divided, and the details of this division, are also crucial. We propose three maxims for easily isolated motifs: the Maxim of Minimization, the Maxim of Multiplicity, and the Maxim of the Median. These maxims together state that selected motifs should be small and composed of as many separate, equally sized modules as possible. For evenly divided motifs with four modules, the largest accessible activity in picomole scale (1–1000 pmole) pools of length 100 is about 34 nucleotides; while for zeptomole scale (1–1000 zmole) pools it is about 20 specific nucleotides (50% probability of occurrence). This latter figure includes some ribozymes and aptamers. Consequently, an RNA metabolism apparently could have begun with only zeptomoles of RNA molecules. PMID:12554865

18. Sequence Motifs in Transit Peptides Act as Independent Functional Units and Can Be Transferred to New Sequence Contexts.

PubMed

Lee, Dong Wook; Woo, Seungjin; Geem, Kyoung Rok; Hwang, Inhwan

2015-09-01

A large number of nuclear-encoded proteins are imported into chloroplasts after they are translated in the cytosol. Import is mediated by transit peptides (TPs) at the N termini of these proteins. TPs contain many small motifs, each of which is critical for a specific step in the process of chloroplast protein import; however, it remains unknown how these motifs are organized to give rise to TPs with diverse sequences. In this study, we generated various hybrid TPs by swapping domains between Rubisco small subunit (RbcS) and chlorophyll a/b-binding protein, which have highly divergent sequences, and examined the abilities of the resultant TPs to deliver proteins into chloroplasts. Subsequently, we compared the functionality of sequence motifs in the hybrid TPs with those of wild-type TPs. The sequence motifs in the hybrid TPs exhibited three different modes of functionality, depending on their domain composition, as follows: active in both wild-type and hybrid TPs, active in wild-type TPs but inactive in hybrid TPs, and inactive in wild-type TPs but active in hybrid TPs. Moreover, synthetic TPs, in which only three critical motifs from RbcS or chlorophyll a/b-binding protein TPs were incorporated into an unrelated sequence, were able to deliver clients to chloroplasts with a comparable efficiency to RbcS TP. Based on these results, we propose that diverse sequence motifs in TPs are independent functional units that interact with specific translocon components at various steps during protein import and can be transferred to new sequence contexts. PMID:26149569

19. A comprehensive analysis of the La-motif protein superfamily.

PubMed

Bousquet-Antonelli, Cécile; Deragon, Jean-Marc

2009-05-01

The extremely well-conserved La motif (LAM), in synergy with the immediately following RNA recognition motif (RRM), allows direct binding of the (genuine) La autoantigen to RNA polymerase III primary transcripts. This motif is not only found on La homologs, but also on La-related proteins (LARPs) of unrelated function. LARPs are widely found amongst eukaryotes and, although poorly characterized, appear to be RNA-binding proteins fulfilling crucial cellular functions. We searched the fully sequenced genomes of 83 eukaryotic species scattered along the tree of life for the presence of LAM-containing proteins. We observed that these proteins are absent from archaea and present in all eukaryotes (except protists from the Plasmodium genus), strongly suggesting that the LAM is an ancestral motif that emerged early after the archaea-eukarya radiation. A complete evolutionary and structural analysis of these proteins resulted in their classification into five families: the genuine La homologs and four LARP families. Unexpectedly, in each family a conserved domain representing either a classical RRM or an RRM-like motif immediately follows the LAM of most proteins. An evolutionary analysis of the LAM-RRM/RRM-L regions shows that these motifs co-evolved and should be used as a single entity to define the functional region of interaction of LARPs with their substrates. We also found two extremely well conserved motifs, named LSA and DM15, shared by LARP6 and LARP1 family members, respectively. We suggest that members of the same family are functional homologs and/or share a common molecular mode of action on different RNA baits.

20. Sequence motifs of myelin membrane proteins: towards the molecular basis of diseases.

PubMed

Sedzik, Jan; Jastrzebski, Jan Pawel; Ikenaka, Kazuhiro

2013-04-01

The shortest sequence of amino acids in protein containing functional and structural information is a "motif." To understand myelin protein functions, we intensively searched for motifs that can be found in myelin proteins. Some myelin proteins had several different motifs or repetition of the same motif. The most abundant motif found among myelin proteins was a myristoylation motif. Bovine MAG held 11 myristoylation motifs and human myelin basic protein held as many as eight such motifs. PMP22 had the fewest myristoylation motifs, which was only one; rat PMP22 contained no such motifs. Cholesterol recognition/interaction amino-acid consensus (CRAC) motif was not found in myelin basic protein. P2 protein of different species contained only one CRAC motif, except for P2 of horse, which had no such motifs. MAG, MOG, and P0 were very rich in CRAC, three to eight motifs per protein. The analysis of motifs in myelin proteins is expected to provide structural insight and refinement of predicted 3D models for which structures are as yet unknown. Analysis of motifs in mutant proteins associated with neurological diseases uncovered that some motifs disappeared in P0 with mutation found in neurological diseases. There are 2,500 motifs deposited in a databank, but 21 were found in myelin proteins, which is only 1% of the total known motifs. There was great variability in the number of motifs among proteins from different species. The appearance or disappearance of protein motifs after gaining point mutation in the protein related to neurological diseases was very interesting. PMID:23339078

1. Discovering motifs in ranked lists of DNA sequences.

PubMed

Eden, Eran; Lipson, Doron; Yogev, Sivan; Yakhini, Zohar

2007-03-23

Computational methods for discovery of sequence elements that are enriched in a target set compared with a background set are fundamental in molecular biology research. One example is the discovery of transcription factor binding motifs that are inferred from ChIP-chip (chromatin immuno-precipitation on a microarray) measurements. Several major challenges in sequence motif discovery still require consideration: (i) the need for a principled approach to partitioning the data into target and background sets; (ii) the lack of rigorous models and of an exact p-value for measuring motif enrichment; (iii) the need for an appropriate framework for accounting for motif multiplicity; (iv) the tendency, in many of the existing methods, to report presumably significant motifs even when applied to randomly generated data. In this paper we present a statistical framework for discovering enriched sequence elements in ranked lists that resolves these four issues. We demonstrate the implementation of this framework in a software application, termed DRIM (discovery of rank imbalanced motifs), which identifies sequence motifs in lists of ranked DNA sequences. We applied DRIM to ChIP-chip and CpG methylation data and obtained the following results. (i) Identification of 50 novel putative transcription factor (TF) binding sites in yeast ChIP-chip data. The biological function of some of them was further investigated to gain new insights on transcription regulation networks in yeast. For example, our discoveries enable the elucidation of the network of the TF ARO80. Another finding concerns a systematic TF binding enhancement to sequences containing CA repeats. (ii) Discovery of novel motifs in human cancer CpG methylation data. Remarkably, most of these motifs are similar to DNA sequence elements bound by the Polycomb complex that promotes histone methylation. Our findings thus support a model in which histone methylation and CpG methylation are mechanistically linked. Overall, we

2. Finding regulatory elements and regulatory motifs: a general probabilistic framework

PubMed Central

van Nimwegen, Erik

2007-01-01

Over the last two decades a large number of algorithms has been developed for regulatory motif finding. Here we show how many of these algorithms, especially those that model binding specificities of regulatory factors with position specific weight matrices (WMs), naturally arise within a general Bayesian probabilistic framework. We discuss how WMs are constructed from sets of regulatory sites, how sites for a given WM can be discovered by scanning of large sequences, how to cluster WMs, and more generally how to cluster large sets of sites from different WMs into clusters. We discuss how 'regulatory modules', clusters of sites for subsets of WMs, can be found in large intergenic sequences, and we discuss different methods for ab initio motif finding, including expectation maximization (EM) algorithms, and motif sampling algorithms. Finally, we extensively discuss how module finding methods and ab initio motif finding methods can be extended to take phylogenetic relations between the input sequences into account, i.e. we show how motif finding and phylogenetic footprinting can be integrated in a rigorous probabilistic framework. The article is intended for readers with a solid background in applied mathematics, and preferably with some knowledge of general Bayesian probabilistic methods. The main purpose of the article is to elucidate that all these methods are not a disconnected set of individual algorithmic recipes, but that they are just different facets of a single integrated probabilistic theory. PMID:17903285

3. BC1 RNA motifs required for dendritic transport in vivo

PubMed Central

Robeck, Thomas; Skryabin, Boris V.; Rozhdestvensky, Timofey S.; Skryabin, Anastasiya B.; Brosius, Jürgen

2016-01-01

BC1 RNA is a small brain specific non-protein coding RNA. It is transported from the cell body into dendrites where it is involved in the fine-tuning translational control. Due to its compactness and established secondary structure, BC1 RNA is an ideal model for investigating the motifs necessary for dendritic localization. Previously, microinjection of in vitro transcribed BC1 RNA mutants into the soma of cultured primary neurons suggested the importance of RNA motifs for dendritic targeting. These ex vivo experiments identified a single bulged nucleotide (U22) and a putative K-turn (GA motif) structure required for dendritic localization or distal transport, respectively. We generated six transgenic mouse lines (three founders each) containing neuronally expressing BC1 RNA variants on a BC1 RNA knockout mouse background. In contrast to ex vivo data, we did not find indications of reduction or abolition of dendritic BC1 RNA localization in the mutants devoid of the GA motif or the bulged nucleotide. We confirmed the ex vivo data, which showed that the triloop terminal sequence had no consequence on dendritic transport. Interestingly, changing the triloop supporting structure completely abolished dendritic localization of BC1 RNA. We propose a novel RNA motif important for dendritic transport in vivo. PMID:27350115

4. BC1 RNA motifs required for dendritic transport in vivo.

PubMed

Robeck, Thomas; Skryabin, Boris V; Rozhdestvensky, Timofey S; Skryabin, Anastasiya B; Brosius, Jürgen

2016-01-01

BC1 RNA is a small brain specific non-protein coding RNA. It is transported from the cell body into dendrites where it is involved in the fine-tuning translational control. Due to its compactness and established secondary structure, BC1 RNA is an ideal model for investigating the motifs necessary for dendritic localization. Previously, microinjection of in vitro transcribed BC1 RNA mutants into the soma of cultured primary neurons suggested the importance of RNA motifs for dendritic targeting. These ex vivo experiments identified a single bulged nucleotide (U22) and a putative K-turn (GA motif) structure required for dendritic localization or distal transport, respectively. We generated six transgenic mouse lines (three founders each) containing neuronally expressing BC1 RNA variants on a BC1 RNA knockout mouse background. In contrast to ex vivo data, we did not find indications of reduction or abolition of dendritic BC1 RNA localization in the mutants devoid of the GA motif or the bulged nucleotide. We confirmed the ex vivo data, which showed that the triloop terminal sequence had no consequence on dendritic transport. Interestingly, changing the triloop supporting structure completely abolished dendritic localization of BC1 RNA. We propose a novel RNA motif important for dendritic transport in vivo. PMID:27350115

5. cWINNOWER algorithm for finding fuzzy dna motifs

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Liang, S.; Samanta, M. P.; Biegel, B. A.

2004-01-01

The cWINNOWER algorithm detects fuzzy motifs in DNA sequences rich in protein-binding signals. A signal is defined as any short nucleotide pattern having up to d mutations differing from a motif of length l. The algorithm finds such motifs if a clique consisting of a sufficiently large number of mutated copies of the motif (i.e., the signals) is present in the DNA sequence. The cWINNOWER algorithm substantially improves the sensitivity of the winnower method of Pevzner and Sze by imposing a consensus constraint, enabling it to detect much weaker signals. We studied the minimum detectable clique size qc as a function of sequence length N for random sequences. We found that qc increases linearly with N for a fast version of the algorithm based on counting three-member sub-cliques. Imposing consensus constraints reduces qc by a factor of three in this case, which makes the algorithm dramatically more sensitive. Our most sensitive algorithm, which counts four-member sub-cliques, needs a minimum of only 13 signals to detect motifs in a sequence of length N = 12,000 for (l, d) = (15, 4). Copyright Imperial College Press.

6. Regulatory role of suppressive motifs from commensal DNA.

PubMed

Bouladoux, N; Hall, J A; Grainger, J R; dos Santos, L M; Kann, M G; Nagarajan, V; Verthelyi, D; Belkaid, Y

2012-11-01

The microbiota contributes to the induction of both effector and regulatory responses in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. However, the mechanisms controlling these distinct properties remain poorly understood. We previously showed that commensal DNA promotes intestinal immunity. Here, we find that the capacity of bacterial DNA to stimulate immune responses is species specific and correlated with the frequency of motifs known to exert immunosuppressive function. In particular, we show that the DNA of Lactobacillus species, including various probiotics, is enriched in suppressive motifs able to inhibit lamina propria dendritic cell activation. In addition, immunosuppressive oligonucleotides sustain T(reg) cell conversion during inflammation and limit pathogen-induced immunopathology and colitis. Altogether, our findings identify DNA-suppressive motifs as a molecular ligand expressed by commensals and support the idea that a balance between stimulatory and regulatory DNA motifs contributes to the induction of controlled immune responses in the GI tract and gut immune homeostasis. Further, our findings suggest that the endogenous regulatory capacity of DNA motifs enriched in some commensal bacteria could be exploited for therapeutic purposes. PMID:22617839

7. MALISAM: a database of structurally analogous motifs in proteins.

PubMed

Cheng, Hua; Kim, Bong-Hyun; Grishin, Nick V

2008-01-01

MALISAM (manual alignments for structurally analogous motifs) represents the first database containing pairs of structural analogs and their alignments. To find reliable analogs, we developed an approach based on three ideas. First, an insertion together with a part of the evolutionary core of one domain family (a hybrid motif) is analogous to a similar motif contained within the core of another domain family. Second, a motif at an interface, formed by secondary structural elements (SSEs) contributed by two or more domains or subunits contacting along that interface, is analogous to a similar motif present in the core of a single domain. Third, an artificial protein obtained through selection from random peptides or in sequence design experiments not biased by sequences of a particular homologous family, is analogous to a structurally similar natural protein. Each analogous pair is superimposed and aligned manually, as well as by several commonly used programs. Applications of this database may range from protein evolution studies, e.g. development of remote homology inference tools and discriminators between homologs and analogs, to protein-folding research, since in the absence of evolutionary reasons, similarity between proteins is caused by structural and folding constraints. The database is publicly available at http://prodata.swmed.edu/malisam. PMID:17855399

8. Interconnected network motifs control podocyte morphology and kidney function.

PubMed

Azeloglu, Evren U; Hardy, Simon V; Eungdamrong, Narat John; Chen, Yibang; Jayaraman, Gomathi; Chuang, Peter Y; Fang, Wei; Xiong, Huabao; Neves, Susana R; Jain, Mohit R; Li, Hong; Ma'ayan, Avi; Gordon, Ronald E; He, John Cijiang; Iyengar, Ravi

2014-02-01

Podocytes are kidney cells with specialized morphology that is required for glomerular filtration. Diseases, such as diabetes, or drug exposure that causes disruption of the podocyte foot process morphology results in kidney pathophysiology. Proteomic analysis of glomeruli isolated from rats with puromycin-induced kidney disease and control rats indicated that protein kinase A (PKA), which is activated by adenosine 3',5'-monophosphate (cAMP), is a key regulator of podocyte morphology and function. In podocytes, cAMP signaling activates cAMP response element-binding protein (CREB) to enhance expression of the gene encoding a differentiation marker, synaptopodin, a protein that associates with actin and promotes its bundling. We constructed and experimentally verified a β-adrenergic receptor-driven network with multiple feedback and feedforward motifs that controls CREB activity. To determine how the motifs interacted to regulate gene expression, we mapped multicompartment dynamical models, including information about protein subcellular localization, onto the network topology using Petri net formalisms. These computational analyses indicated that the juxtaposition of multiple feedback and feedforward motifs enabled the prolonged CREB activation necessary for synaptopodin expression and actin bundling. Drug-induced modulation of these motifs in diseased rats led to recovery of normal morphology and physiological function in vivo. Thus, analysis of regulatory motifs using network dynamics can provide insights into pathophysiology that enable predictions for drug intervention strategies to treat kidney disease. PMID:24497609

9. Novel Structural and Functional Motifs in cellulose synthase (CesA) Genes of Bread Wheat (Triticum aestivum, L.).

PubMed

Kaur, Simerjeet; Dhugga, Kanwarpal S; Gill, Kulvinder; Singh, Jaswinder

2016-01-01

Cellulose is the primary determinant of mechanical strength in plant tissues. Late-season lodging is inversely related to the amount of cellulose in a unit length of the stem. Wheat is the most widely grown of all the crops globally, yet information on its CesA gene family is limited. We have identified 22 CesA genes from bread wheat, which include homoeologs from each of the three genomes, and named them as TaCesAXA, TaCesAXB or TaCesAXD, where X denotes the gene number and the last suffix stands for the respective genome. Sequence analyses of the CESA proteins from wheat and their orthologs from barley, maize, rice, and several dicot species (Arabidopsis, beet, cotton, poplar, potato, rose gum and soybean) revealed motifs unique to monocots (Poales) or dicots. Novel structural motifs CQIC and SVICEXWFA were identified, which distinguished the CESAs involved in the formation of primary and secondary cell wall (PCW and SCW) in all the species. We also identified several new motifs specific to monocots or dicots. The conserved motifs identified in this study possibly play functional roles specific to PCW or SCW formation. The new insights from this study advance our knowledge about the structure, function and evolution of the CesA family in plants in general and wheat in particular. This information will be useful in improving culm strength to reduce lodging or alter wall composition to improve biofuel production. PMID:26771740

10. Novel Structural and Functional Motifs in cellulose synthase (CesA) Genes of Bread Wheat (Triticum aestivum, L.).

PubMed

Kaur, Simerjeet; Dhugga, Kanwarpal S; Gill, Kulvinder; Singh, Jaswinder

2016-01-01

Cellulose is the primary determinant of mechanical strength in plant tissues. Late-season lodging is inversely related to the amount of cellulose in a unit length of the stem. Wheat is the most widely grown of all the crops globally, yet information on its CesA gene family is limited. We have identified 22 CesA genes from bread wheat, which include homoeologs from each of the three genomes, and named them as TaCesAXA, TaCesAXB or TaCesAXD, where X denotes the gene number and the last suffix stands for the respective genome. Sequence analyses of the CESA proteins from wheat and their orthologs from barley, maize, rice, and several dicot species (Arabidopsis, beet, cotton, poplar, potato, rose gum and soybean) revealed motifs unique to monocots (Poales) or dicots. Novel structural motifs CQIC and SVICEXWFA were identified, which distinguished the CESAs involved in the formation of primary and secondary cell wall (PCW and SCW) in all the species. We also identified several new motifs specific to monocots or dicots. The conserved motifs identified in this study possibly play functional roles specific to PCW or SCW formation. The new insights from this study advance our knowledge about the structure, function and evolution of the CesA family in plants in general and wheat in particular. This information will be useful in improving culm strength to reduce lodging or alter wall composition to improve biofuel production.

11. Novel Structural and Functional Motifs in cellulose synthase (CesA) Genes of Bread Wheat (Triticum aestivum, L.)

PubMed Central

Kaur, Simerjeet; Dhugga, Kanwarpal S.; Gill, Kulvinder; Singh, Jaswinder

2016-01-01

Cellulose is the primary determinant of mechanical strength in plant tissues. Late-season lodging is inversely related to the amount of cellulose in a unit length of the stem. Wheat is the most widely grown of all the crops globally, yet information on its CesA gene family is limited. We have identified 22 CesA genes from bread wheat, which include homoeologs from each of the three genomes, and named them as TaCesAXA, TaCesAXB or TaCesAXD, where X denotes the gene number and the last suffix stands for the respective genome. Sequence analyses of the CESA proteins from wheat and their orthologs from barley, maize, rice, and several dicot species (Arabidopsis, beet, cotton, poplar, potato, rose gum and soybean) revealed motifs unique to monocots (Poales) or dicots. Novel structural motifs CQIC and SVICEXWFA were identified, which distinguished the CESAs involved in the formation of primary and secondary cell wall (PCW and SCW) in all the species. We also identified several new motifs specific to monocots or dicots. The conserved motifs identified in this study possibly play functional roles specific to PCW or SCW formation. The new insights from this study advance our knowledge about the structure, function and evolution of the CesA family in plants in general and wheat in particular. This information will be useful in improving culm strength to reduce lodging or alter wall composition to improve biofuel production. PMID:26771740

12. Saturn's atmospheric composition from observations by the Cassini/Composite Infrared Spectrometer

Abbas, Mian; Young, Madison M.; Leclair, Andre C.; Achterberg, Richard K.; Flasar, F. Michael; Kunde, Virgil G.

Thermal emission infrared observations of Saturn's atmosphere have been made by the Compos-ite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) aboard the Cassini spacecraft since its insertion into Saturn's orbit on July 2nd, 2004. The measurements made in both limb and nadir mode of observa-tions consist of infrared spectra in the 10-1400 cm-1 region with a variable spectral resolution of 0.53 cm-1 and 2.8 cm-1 , and exhibit rotational and vibrational spectral features that may be analyzed for retrieval of the thermal structure and constituent distribution of Saturn's at-mosphere. In this paper, we present a comprehensive analysis of the CIRS infrared observed spectra for retrieval of Saturn's atmospheric composition focusing on the distributions of some selected hydrocarbons, phosphine, ammonia, and possible determination of the isotopic ratios of some species with sufficiently strong isolated spectral features. A comparison of the retrieved constituent distributions with the available data in the literature will be made.

13. Modeling Small Noncanonical RNA Motifs with the Rosetta FARFAR Server.

PubMed

Yesselman, Joseph D; Das, Rhiju

2016-01-01

Noncanonical RNA motifs help define the vast complexity of RNA structure and function, and in many cases, these loops and junctions are on the order of only ten nucleotides in size. Unfortunately, despite their small size, there is no reliable method to determine the ensemble of lowest energy structures of junctions and loops at atomic accuracy. This chapter outlines straightforward protocols using a webserver for Rosetta Fragment Assembly of RNA with Full Atom Refinement (FARFAR) ( http://rosie.rosettacommons.org/rna_denovo/submit ) to model the 3D structure of small noncanonical RNA motifs for use in visualizing motifs and for further refinement or filtering with experimental data such as NMR chemical shifts. PMID:27665600

14. Selection against spurious promoter motifs correlates withtranslational efficiency across bacteria

SciTech Connect

Froula, Jeffrey L.; Francino, M. Pilar

2007-05-01

Because binding of RNAP to misplaced sites could compromise the efficiency of transcription, natural selection for the optimization of gene expression should regulate the distribution of DNA motifs capable of RNAP-binding across the genome. Here we analyze the distribution of the -10 promoter motifs that bind the {sigma}{sup 70} subunit of RNAP in 42 bacterial genomes. We show that selection on these motifs operates across the genome, maintaining an over-representation of -10 motifs in regulatory sequences while eliminating them from the nonfunctional and, in most cases, from the protein coding regions. In some genomes, however, -10 sites are over-represented in the coding sequences; these sites could induce pauses effecting regulatory roles throughout the length of a transcriptional unit. For nonfunctional sequences, the extent of motif under-representation varies across genomes in a manner that broadly correlates with the number of tRNA genes, a good indicator of translational speed and growth rate. This suggests that minimizing the time invested in gene transcription is an important selective pressure against spurious binding. However, selection against spurious binding is detectable in the reduced genomes of host-restricted bacteria that grow at slow rates, indicating that components of efficiency other than speed may also be important. Minimizing the number of RNAP molecules per cell required for transcription, and the corresponding energetic expense, may be most relevant in slow growers. These results indicate that genome-level properties affecting the efficiency of transcription and translation can respond in an integrated manner to optimize gene expression. The detection of selection against promoter motifs in nonfunctional regions also implies that no sequence may evolve free of selective constraints, at least in the relatively small and unstructured genomes of bacteria.

15. The SLiMDisc server: short, linear motif discovery in proteins.

PubMed

Davey, Norman E; Edwards, Richard J; Shields, Denis C

2007-07-01

Short, linear motifs (SLiMs) play a critical role in many biological processes, particularly in protein-protein interactions. Overrepresentation of convergent occurrences of motifs in proteins with a common attribute (such as similar subcellular location or a shared interaction partner) provides a feasible means to discover novel occurrences computationally. The SLiMDisc (Short, Linear Motif Discovery) web server corrects for common ancestry in describing shared motifs, concentrating on the convergently evolved motifs. The server returns a listing of the most interesting motifs found within unmasked regions, ranked according to an information content-based scoring scheme. It allows interactive input masking, according to various criteria. Scoring allows for evolutionary relationships in the data sets through treatment of BLAST local alignments. Alongside this ranked list, visualizations of the results improve understanding of the context of suggested motifs, helping to identify true motifs of interest. These visualizations include alignments of motif occurrences, alignments of motifs and their homologues and a visual schematic of the top-ranked motifs. Additional options for filtering and/or re-ranking motifs further permit the user to focus on motifs with desired attributes. Returned motifs can also be compared with known SLiMs from the literature. SLiMDisc is available at: http://bioware.ucd.ie/~slimdisc/.

16. Nephila clavipes Flagelliform silk-like GGX motifs contribute to extensibility and spacer motifs contribute to strength in synthetic spider silk fibers.

PubMed

Adrianos, Sherry L; Teulé, Florence; Hinman, Michael B; Jones, Justin A; Weber, Warner S; Yarger, Jeffery L; Lewis, Randolph V

2013-06-10

Flagelliform spider silk is the most extensible silk fiber produced by orb weaver spiders, though not as strong as the dragline silk of the spider. The motifs found in the core of the Nephila clavipes flagelliform Flag protein are GGX, spacer, and GPGGX. Flag does not contain the polyalanine motif known to provide the strength of dragline silk. To investigate the source of flagelliform fiber strength, four recombinant proteins were produced containing variations of the three core motifs of the Nephila clavipes flagelliform Flag protein that produces this type of fiber. The as-spun fibers were processed in 80% aqueous isopropanol using a standardized process for all four fiber types, which produced improved mechanical properties. Mechanical testing of the recombinant proteins determined that the GGX motif contributes extensibility and the spacer motif contributes strength to the recombinant fibers. Recombinant protein fibers containing the spacer motif were stronger than the proteins constructed without the spacer that contained only the GGX motif or the combination of the GGX and GPGGX motifs. The mechanical and structural X-ray diffraction analysis of the recombinant fibers provide data that suggests a functional role of the spacer motif that produces tensile strength, though the spacer motif is not clearly defined structurally. These results indicate that the spacer is likely a primary contributor of strength, with the GGX motif supplying mobility to the protein network of native N. clavipes flagelliform silk fibers. PMID:23646825

17. 5. DETAIL VIEW OF THE EGYPTIAN MOTIF DECORATIVE ELEMENTS OF ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

5. DETAIL VIEW OF THE EGYPTIAN MOTIF DECORATIVE ELEMENTS OF BUILDING 1'S MAIN ENTRY TOWER (INCLUDING THE ENGAGED COLUMN CAPITALS, PILASTERS & CAPITALS, CORNICES, AND TERRA COTTA EAGLES); LOOKING SW FROM THE E WING ROOF. (Ryan) - Veterans Administration Medical Center, Building No. 1, Old State Route 13 West, Marion, Williamson County, IL

18. Insights into the motif preference of APOBEC3 enzymes.

PubMed

Ebrahimi, Diako; Alinejad-Rokny, Hamid; Davenport, Miles P

2014-01-01

We used a multivariate data analysis approach to identify motifs associated with HIV hypermutation by different APOBEC3 enzymes. The analysis showed that APOBEC3G targets G mainly within GG, TG, TGG, GGG, TGGG and also GGGT. The G nucleotides flanked by a C at the 3' end (in +1 and +2 positions) were indicated as disfavoured targets by APOBEC3G. The G nucleotides within GGGG were found to be targeted at a frequency much less than what is expected. We found that the infrequent G-to-A mutation within GGGG is not limited to the inaccessibility, to APOBEC3, of poly Gs in the central and 3'polypurine tracts (PPTs) which remain double stranded during the HIV reverse transcription. GGGG motifs outside the PPTs were also disfavoured. The motifs GGAG and GAGG were also found to be disfavoured targets for APOBEC3. The motif-dependent mutation of G within the HIV genome by members of the APOBEC3 family other than APOBEC3G was limited to GA→AA changes. The results did not show evidence of other types of context dependent G-to-A changes in the HIV genome. PMID:24498164

19. Motifs in triadic random graphs based on Steiner triple systems

Winkler, Marco; Reichardt, Jörg

2013-08-01

Conventionally, pairwise relationships between nodes are considered to be the fundamental building blocks of complex networks. However, over the last decade, the overabundance of certain subnetwork patterns, i.e., the so-called motifs, has attracted much attention. It has been hypothesized that these motifs, instead of links, serve as the building blocks of network structures. Although the relation between a network's topology and the general properties of the system, such as its function, its robustness against perturbations, or its efficiency in spreading information, is the central theme of network science, there is still a lack of sound generative models needed for testing the functional role of subgraph motifs. Our work aims to overcome this limitation. We employ the framework of exponential random graph models (ERGMs) to define models based on triadic substructures. The fact that only a small portion of triads can actually be set independently poses a challenge for the formulation of such models. To overcome this obstacle, we use Steiner triple systems (STSs). These are partitions of sets of nodes into pair-disjoint triads, which thus can be specified independently. Combining the concepts of ERGMs and STSs, we suggest generative models capable of generating ensembles of networks with nontrivial triadic Z-score profiles. Further, we discover inevitable correlations between the abundance of triad patterns, which occur solely for statistical reasons and need to be taken into account when discussing the functional implications of motif statistics. Moreover, we calculate the degree distributions of our triadic random graphs analytically.

20. DNA containing CpG motifs induces angiogenesis

Zheng, Mei; Klinman, Dennis M.; Gierynska, Malgorzata; Rouse, Barry T.

2002-06-01

New blood vessel formation in the cornea is an essential step in the pathogenesis of a blinding immunoinflammatory reaction caused by ocular infection with herpes simplex virus (HSV). By using a murine corneal micropocket assay, we found that HSV DNA (which contains a significant excess of potentially bioactive "CpG" motifs when compared with mammalian DNA) induces angiogenesis. Moreover, synthetic oligodeoxynucleotides containing CpG motifs attract inflammatory cells and stimulate the release of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), which in turn triggers new blood vessel formation. In vitro, CpG DNA induces the J774A.1 murine macrophage cell line to produce VEGF. In vivo CpG-induced angiogenesis was blocked by the administration of anti-mVEGF Ab or the inclusion of "neutralizing" oligodeoxynucleotides that specifically oppose the stimulatory activity of CpG DNA. These findings establish that DNA containing bioactive CpG motifs induces angiogenesis, and suggest that CpG motifs in HSV DNA may contribute to the blinding lesions of stromal keratitis.

1. Themes or Motifs? Aiming for Coherence through Interdisciplinary Outlines.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barton, Keith C.; Smith Lynne A.

2000-01-01

Describes how "motif-units" undermine the potential benefits of integrated thematic instruction. Suggests replacing the term "thematic unit" with the concept of "interdisciplinary outline," which focus on meaningful content, authentic activities, students' needs, teacher mediation, and a variety of resources. Shows how one fourth-grade teacher…

2. An Integrated Procedure for the Structural Design of a Composite Rotor-Hydrofoil of a Water Current Turbine (WCT)

Oller Aramayo, S. A.; Nallim, L. G.; Oller, S.

2013-12-01

This paper shows an integrated structural design optimization of a composite rotor-hydrofoil of a water current turbine by means the finite elements method (FEM), using a Serial/Parallel mixing theory (Rastellini et al. Comput. Struct. 86:879-896, 2008, Martinez et al., 2007, Martinez and Oller Arch. Comput. Methods. 16(4):357-397, 2009, Martinez et al. Compos. Part B Eng. 42(2011):134-144, 2010) coupled with a fluid-dynamic formulation and multi-objective optimization algorithm (Gen and Cheng 1997, Lee et al. Compos. Struct. 99:181-192, 2013, Lee et al. Compos. Struct. 94(3):1087-1096, 2012). The composite hydrofoil of the turbine rotor has been design using a reinforced laminate composites, taking into account the optimization of the carbon fiber orientation to obtain the maximum strength and lower rotational-inertia. Also, these results have been compared with a steel hydrofoil remarking the different performance on both structures. The mechanical and geometrical parameters involved in the design of this fiber-reinforced composite material are the fiber orientation, number of layers, stacking sequence and laminate thickness. Water pressure in the rotor of the turbine is obtained from a coupled fluid-dynamic simulation (CFD), whose detail can be found in the reference Oller et al. (2012). The main purpose of this paper is to achieve a very low inertia rotor minimizing the start-stop effect, because it is applied in axial water flow turbine currently in design by the authors, in which is important to take the maximum advantage of the kinetic energy. The FEM simulation codes are engineered by CIMNE (International Center for Numerical Method in Engineering, Barcelona, Spain), COMPack for the solids problem application, KRATOS for fluid dynamic application and RMOP for the structural optimization. To validate the procedure here presented, many turbine rotors made of composite materials are analyzed and three of them are compared with the steel one.

3. Folding of helical membrane proteins: the role of polar, GxxxG-like and proline motifs.

PubMed

Senes, Alessandro; Engel, Donald E; DeGrado, William F

2004-08-01

Helical integral membrane proteins share several structural determinants that are widely conserved across their universe. The discovery of common motifs has furthered our understanding of the features that are important to stability in the membrane environment, while simultaneously providing clues about proteins that lack high-resolution structures. Motif analysis also helps to target mutagenesis studies, and other experimental and computational work. Three types of transmembrane motifs have recently seen interesting developments: the GxxxG motif and its like; polar and hydrogen bonding motifs; and proline motifs.

4. Determination of Sectional Constancy of Organic Coal-Water Fuel Compositions

Dmitrienko, Margarita A.; Nyashina, Galina S.; Strizhak, Pavel A.

2016-02-01

To use widespreadly the waste of coals and oils processing in the great and the small-scale power generation, the key parameter, which is sectional constancy of promising organic coal-water fuels (OCWF), was studied. The compo-sitions of OCWF from brown and bituminous coals, filter cakes, used motor, turbine and dielectrical oils, water-oil emul-sion and special wetting agent (plasticizer) were investigated. Two modes of preparation were considered. They are with homogenizer and cavitator. It was established that the constancy did not exceed 5-7 days for the compositions of OCWF with brown coals, and 12-15 days for that compositions with bituminous coals and filter cakes. The injection of used oils in a composition of OCWF led to increase in viscosity of fuel compositions and their sectional constancy.

5. Characterization of the RNA motif responsible for the specific interaction of potato spindle tuber viroid RNA (PSTVd) and the tomato protein Virp1

PubMed Central

Gozmanova, Mariyana; Denti, Michela Alessandra; Minkov, Ivan Nikiforov; Tsagris, Mina; Tabler, Martin

2003-01-01

Viroids are small non-coding parasitic RNAs that are able to infect their host plants systemically. This circular naked RNA makes use of host proteins to accomplish its proliferation. Here we analyze the specific binding of the tomato protein Virp1 to the terminal right domain of potato spindle tuber viroid RNA (PSTVd). We find that two asymmetric internal loops within the PSTVd (+) RNA, each composed of the sequence elements 5′-ACAGG and CUCUUCC-5′, are responsible for the specific RNA–protein interaction. In view of the nucleotide composition we call this structural element an ‘RY motif’. The RY motif located close to the terminal right hairpin loop of the PSTVd secondary structure has an ∼5-fold stronger binding affinity than the more centrally located RY motif. Simultaneous sequence alterations in both RY motifs abolished the specific binding to Virp1. Mutations in any of the two RY motifs resulted in non-infectious viroid RNA, with the exception of one case, where reversion to sequence wild type took place. In contrast, the simultaneous exchange of two nucleotides within the terminal right hairpin loop of PSTVd had only moderate influence on the binding to Virp1. This variant was infectious and sequence changes were maintained in the progeny. The relevance of the phylogenetic conservation of the RY motif, and sequence elements therein, amongst various genera of the family Pospiviroidae is discussed. PMID:14500815

6. A Bioinformatics Approach for Detecting Repetitive Nested Motifs using Pattern Matching

PubMed Central

Romero, José R.; Carballido, Jessica A.; Garbus, Ingrid; Echenique, Viviana C.; Ponzoni, Ignacio

2016-01-01

The identification of nested motifs in genomic sequences is a complex computational problem. The detection of these patterns is important to allow the discovery of transposable element (TE) insertions, incomplete reverse transcripts, deletions, and/or mutations. In this study, a de novo strategy for detecting patterns that represent nested motifs was designed based on exhaustive searches for pairs of motifs and combinatorial pattern analysis. These patterns can be grouped into three categories, motifs within other motifs, motifs flanked by other motifs, and motifs of large size. The methodology used in this study, applied to genomic sequences from the plant species Aegilops tauschii and Oryza sativa, revealed that it is possible to identify putative nested TEs by detecting these three types of patterns. The results were validated through BLAST alignments, which revealed the efficacy and usefulness of the new method, which is called Mamushka. PMID:27812277

7. FPGA implementation of motifs-based neuronal network and synchronization analysis

Deng, Bin; Zhu, Zechen; Yang, Shuangming; Wei, Xile; Wang, Jiang; Yu, Haitao

2016-06-01

Motifs in complex networks play a crucial role in determining the brain functions. In this paper, 13 kinds of motifs are implemented with Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) to investigate the relationships between the networks properties and motifs properties. We use discretization method and pipelined architecture to construct various motifs with Hindmarsh-Rose (HR) neuron as the node model. We also build a small-world network based on these motifs and conduct the synchronization analysis of motifs as well as the constructed network. We find that the synchronization properties of motif determine that of motif-based small-world network, which demonstrates effectiveness of our proposed hardware simulation platform. By imitation of some vital nuclei in the brain to generate normal discharges, our proposed FPGA-based artificial neuronal networks have the potential to replace the injured nuclei to complete the brain function in the treatment of Parkinson's disease and epilepsy.

8. Identifiability and inference of pathway motifs by epistasis analysis

Phenix, Hilary; Perkins, Theodore; Kærn, Mads

2013-06-01

The accuracy of genetic network inference is limited by the assumptions used to determine if one hypothetical model is better than another in explaining experimental observations. Most previous work on epistasis analysis—in which one attempts to infer pathway relationships by determining equivalences among traits following mutations—has been based on Boolean or linear models. Here, we delineate the ultimate limits of epistasis-based inference by systematically surveying all two-gene network motifs and use symbolic algebra with arbitrary regulation functions to examine trait equivalences. Our analysis divides the motifs into equivalence classes, where different genetic perturbations result in indistinguishable experimental outcomes. We demonstrate that this partitioning can reveal important information about network architecture, and show, using simulated data, that it greatly improves the accuracy of genetic network inference methods. Because of the minimal assumptions involved, equivalence partitioning has broad applicability for gene network inference.

9. Identifiability and inference of pathway motifs by epistasis analysis.

PubMed

Phenix, Hilary; Perkins, Theodore; Kærn, Mads

2013-06-01

The accuracy of genetic network inference is limited by the assumptions used to determine if one hypothetical model is better than another in explaining experimental observations. Most previous work on epistasis analysis-in which one attempts to infer pathway relationships by determining equivalences among traits following mutations-has been based on Boolean or linear models. Here, we delineate the ultimate limits of epistasis-based inference by systematically surveying all two-gene network motifs and use symbolic algebra with arbitrary regulation functions to examine trait equivalences. Our analysis divides the motifs into equivalence classes, where different genetic perturbations result in indistinguishable experimental outcomes. We demonstrate that this partitioning can reveal important information about network architecture, and show, using simulated data, that it greatly improves the accuracy of genetic network inference methods. Because of the minimal assumptions involved, equivalence partitioning has broad applicability for gene network inference. PMID:23822501

10. DMINDA: an integrated web server for DNA motif identification and analyses

PubMed Central

Ma, Qin; Zhang, Hanyuan; Mao, Xizeng; Zhou, Chuan; Liu, Bingqiang; Chen, Xin; Xu, Ying

2014-01-01

DMINDA (DNA motif identification and analyses) is an integrated web server for DNA motif identification and analyses, which is accessible at http://csbl.bmb.uga.edu/DMINDA/. This web site is freely available to all users and there is no login requirement. This server provides a suite of cis-regulatory motif analysis functions on DNA sequences, which are important to elucidation of the mechanisms of transcriptional regulation: (i) de novo motif finding for a given set of promoter sequences along with statistical scores for the predicted motifs derived based on information extracted from a control set, (ii) scanning motif instances of a query motif in provided genomic sequences, (iii) motif comparison and clustering of identified motifs, and (iv) co-occurrence analyses of query motifs in given promoter sequences. The server is powered by a backend computer cluster with over 150 computing nodes, and is particularly useful for motif prediction and analyses in prokaryotic genomes. We believe that DMINDA, as a new and comprehensive web server for cis-regulatory motif finding and analyses, will benefit the genomic research community in general and prokaryotic genome researchers in particular. PMID:24753419

11. Characterization of two VQIXXK motifs for tau fibrillization in vitro.

PubMed

Li, Wenkai; Lee, Virginia M-Y

2006-12-26

Tau proteins are building blocks of the filaments that form neurofibrillary tangles of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and related neurodegenerative tauopathies. It was recently reported that two VQIXXK motifs in the microtubule (MT) binding region, named PHF6 and PHF6*, are responsible for tau fibrillization. However, the exact role each of these motifs plays in this process has not been analyzed in detail. Using a recombinant human tau fragment containing only the four MT-binding repeats (K18), we show that deletion of either PHF6 or PHF6* affected tau assembly but only PHF6 is essential for filament formation, suggesting a critical role of this motif. To determine the amino acid residues within PHF6 that are required for tau fibrillization, a series of deletion and mutation constructs targeting this motif were generated. Deletion of VQI in either PHF6 or PHF6* lessened but did not eliminate K18 fibrillization. However, removal of the single K311 residue from PHF6 completely abrogated the fibril formation of K18. K311D mutation of K18 inhibited tau filament formation, while K311A and K311R mutations had no effect. These data imply that charge change at position 311 is important in tau fibril formation. A similar requirement of nonnegative charge at this position for fibrillization was observed with the full-length human tau isoform (T40), and data from these studies indicate that the formation of fibrils by T40K311D and T40K311P mutants is repressed at the nucleation phase. These findings provide important insights into the mechanisms of tau fibrillization and suggest targets for AD drug discovery to ameliorate neurodegeneration mediated by filamentous tau pathologies.

12. Graph animals, subgraph sampling, and motif search in large networks

Baskerville, Kim; Grassberger, Peter; Paczuski, Maya

2007-09-01

We generalize a sampling algorithm for lattice animals (connected clusters on a regular lattice) to a Monte Carlo algorithm for “graph animals,” i.e., connected subgraphs in arbitrary networks. As with the algorithm in [N. Kashtan , Bioinformatics 20, 1746 (2004)], it provides a weighted sample, but the computation of the weights is much faster (linear in the size of subgraphs, instead of superexponential). This allows subgraphs with up to ten or more nodes to be sampled with very high statistics, from arbitrarily large networks. Using this together with a heuristic algorithm for rapidly classifying isomorphic graphs, we present results for two protein interaction networks obtained using the tandem affinity purification (TAP) method: one of Escherichia coli with 230 nodes and 695 links, and one for yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) with roughly ten times more nodes and links. We find in both cases that most connected subgraphs are strong motifs ( Z scores >10 ) or antimotifs ( Z scores <-10 ) when the null model is the ensemble of networks with fixed degree sequence. Strong differences appear between the two networks, with dominant motifs in E. coli being (nearly) bipartite graphs and having many pairs of nodes that connect to the same neighbors, while dominant motifs in yeast tend towards completeness or contain large cliques. We also explore a number of methods that do not rely on measurements of Z scores or comparisons with null models. For instance, we discuss the influence of specific complexes like the 26S proteasome in yeast, where a small number of complexes dominate the k cores with large k and have a decisive effect on the strongest motifs with 6-8 nodes. We also present Zipf plots of counts versus rank. They show broad distributions that are not power laws, in contrast to the case when disconnected subgraphs are included.

13. Motif, the basics: an overview of the widget set

SciTech Connect

McClurg, F.R.

1992-10-01

The Motif library provides programmers with a rich set of tools for building a graphical user interface with a three-dimensional appearance and a consistent method of interaction for controlling an Unix application. This Xt-based, high-level library presents an object-oriented approach to program design for programmers and allows end-users the flexibility to modify attributes of the interface.

14. Biosynthesis of caffeine underlying the diversity of motif B' methyltransferase.

PubMed

Nakayama, Fumiyo; Mizuno, Kouichi; Kato, Misako

2015-05-01

Caffeine (1,3,7-trimethylxanthine) and theobromine (3,7-dimethylxanthine) are well-known purine alkaloids in Camellia, Coffea, Cola, Paullinia, Ilex, and Theobroma spp. The caffeine biosynthetic pathway depends on the substrate specificity of N-methyltransferases, which are members of the motif B' methyl-transferase family. The caffeine biosynthetic pathways in purine alkaloid-containing plants might have evolved in parallel with one another, consistent with different catalytic properties of the enzymes involved in these pathways. PMID:26058161

15. Biomolecular network motif counting and discovery by color coding.

PubMed

Alon, Noga; Dao, Phuong; Hajirasouliha, Iman; Hormozdiari, Fereydoun; Sahinalp, S Cenk

2008-07-01

Protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks of many organisms share global topological features such as degree distribution, k-hop reachability, betweenness and closeness. Yet, some of these networks can differ significantly from the others in terms of local structures: e.g. the number of specific network motifs can vary significantly among PPI networks. Counting the number of network motifs provides a major challenge to compare biomolecular networks. Recently developed algorithms have been able to count the number of induced occurrences of subgraphs with k < or = 7 vertices. Yet no practical algorithm exists for counting non-induced occurrences, or counting subgraphs with k > or = 8 vertices. Counting non-induced occurrences of network motifs is not only challenging but also quite desirable as available PPI networks include several false interactions and miss many others. In this article, we show how to apply the 'color coding' technique for counting non-induced occurrences of subgraph topologies in the form of trees and bounded treewidth subgraphs. Our algorithm can count all occurrences of motif G' with k vertices in a network G with n vertices in time polynomial with n, provided k = O(log n). We use our algorithm to obtain 'treelet' distributions for k < or = 10 of available PPI networks of unicellular organisms (Saccharomyces cerevisiae Escherichia coli and Helicobacter Pyloris), which are all quite similar, and a multicellular organism (Caenorhabditis elegans) which is significantly different. Furthermore, the treelet distribution of the unicellular organisms are similar to that obtained by the 'duplication model' but are quite different from that of the 'preferential attachment model'. The treelet distribution is robust w.r.t. sparsification with bait/edge coverage of 70% but differences can be observed when bait/edge coverage drops to 50%. PMID:18586721

16. Biosynthesis of caffeine underlying the diversity of motif B' methyltransferase.

PubMed

Nakayama, Fumiyo; Mizuno, Kouichi; Kato, Misako

2015-05-01

Caffeine (1,3,7-trimethylxanthine) and theobromine (3,7-dimethylxanthine) are well-known purine alkaloids in Camellia, Coffea, Cola, Paullinia, Ilex, and Theobroma spp. The caffeine biosynthetic pathway depends on the substrate specificity of N-methyltransferases, which are members of the motif B' methyl-transferase family. The caffeine biosynthetic pathways in purine alkaloid-containing plants might have evolved in parallel with one another, consistent with different catalytic properties of the enzymes involved in these pathways.

17. Motif, the basics: an overview of the widget set

SciTech Connect

McClurg, F.R.

1992-10-01

The Motif library provides programmers with a rich set of tools for building a graphical user interface with a three-dimensional appearance and a consistent method of interaction for controlling an Unix application. This Xt-based, high-level library presents an object-oriented'' approach to program design for programmers and allows end-users the flexibility to modify attributes of the interface.

18. Maximum likelihood density modification by pattern recognition of structural motifs

DOEpatents

Terwilliger, Thomas C.

2004-04-13

An electron density for a crystallographic structure having protein regions and solvent regions is improved by maximizing the log likelihood of a set of structures factors {F.sub.h } using a local log-likelihood function: (x)+p(.rho.(x).vertline.SOLV)p.sub.SOLV (x)+p(.rho.(x).vertline.H)p.sub.H (x)], where p.sub.PROT (x) is the probability that x is in the protein region, p(.rho.(x).vertline.PROT) is the conditional probability for .rho.(x) given that x is in the protein region, and p.sub.SOLV (x) and p(.rho.(x).vertline.SOLV) are the corresponding quantities for the solvent region, p.sub.H (x) refers to the probability that there is a structural motif at a known location, with a known orientation, in the vicinity of the point x; and p(.rho.(x).vertline.H) is the probability distribution for electron density at this point given that the structural motif actually is present. One appropriate structural motif is a helical structure within the crystallographic structure.

19. Binding cofactors with triplex-based DNA motifs.

PubMed

Kröner, Christoph; Göckel, Anja; Liu, Wenjing; Richert, Clemens

2013-11-18

Cofactors are pivotal compounds for the cell and many biotechnological processes. It is therefore interesting to ask how well cofactors can be bound by oligonucleotides designed not to convert but to store and release these biomolecules. Here we show that triplex-based DNA binding motifs can be used to bind nucleotides and cofactors, including NADH, FAD, SAM, acetyl CoA, and tetrahydrofolate (THF). Dissociation constants between 0.1 μM for SAM and 35 μM for THF were measured. A two-nucleotide gap still binds NADH. The selectivity for one ligand over the others can be changed by changing the sequence of the binding pocket. For example, a mismatch placed in one of the two triplets adjacent to the base-pairing site changes the selectivity, favoring the binding of FAD over that of ATP. Further, changing one of the two thymines of an A-binding motif to cytosine gives significant affinity for G, whereas changing the other does not. Immobilization of DNA motifs gives beads that store NADH. Exploratory experiments show that the beads release the cofactor upon warming to body temperature.

20. MAR characteristic motifs mediate episomal vector in CHO cells.

PubMed

Lin, Yan; Li, Zhaoxi; Wang, Tianyun; Wang, Xiaoyin; Wang, Li; Dong, Weihua; Jing, Changqin; Yang, Xianjun

2015-04-01

An ideal gene therapy vector should enable persistent transgene expression without limitations in safety and reproducibility. Recent researches' insight into the ability of chromosomal matrix attachment regions (MARs) to mediate episomal maintenance of genetic elements allowed the development of a circular episomal vector. Although a MAR-mediated engineered vector has been developed, little is known on which motifs of MAR confer this function during interaction with the host genome. Here, we report an artificially synthesized DNA fragment containing only characteristic motif sequences that served as an alternative to human beta-interferon matrix attachment region sequence. The potential of the vector to mediate gene transfer in CHO cells was investigated. The short synthetic MAR motifs were found to mediate episomal vector at a low copy number for many generations without integration into the host genome. Higher transgene expression was maintained for at least 4 months. In addition, MAR was maintained episomally and conferred sustained EGFP expression even in nonselective CHO cells. All the results demonstrated that MAR characteristic sequence-based vector can function as stable episomes in CHO cells, supporting long-term and effective transgene expression.

1. A novel swarm intelligence algorithm for finding DNA motifs

PubMed Central

Lei, Chengwei; Ruan, Jianhua

2010-01-01

Discovering DNA motifs from co-expressed or co-regulated genes is an important step towards deciphering complex gene regulatory networks and understanding gene functions. Despite significant improvement in the last decade, it still remains one of the most challenging problems in computational molecular biology. In this work, we propose a novel motif finding algorithm that finds consensus patterns using a population-based stochastic optimisation technique called Particle Swarm Optimisation (PSO), which has been shown to be effective in optimising difficult multidimensional problems in continuous domains. We propose to use a word dissimilarity graph to remap the neighborhood structure of the solution space of DNA motifs, and propose a modification of the naive PSO algorithm to accommodate discrete variables. In order to improve efficiency, we also propose several strategies for escaping from local optima and for automatically determining the termination criteria. Experimental results on simulated challenge problems show that our method is both more efficient and more accurate than several existing algorithms. Applications to several sets of real promoter sequences also show that our approach is able to detect known transcription factor binding sites, and outperforms two of the most popular existing algorithms. PMID:20090174

2. Structure and ubiquitin binding of the ubiquitin-interacting motif

SciTech Connect

Fisher,R.; Wang, B.; Alam, S.; Higginson, D.; Robinson, H.; Sundquist, C.; Hill, C.

2003-01-01

Ubiquitylation is used to target proteins into a large number of different biological processes including proteasomal degradation, endocytosis, virus budding, and vacuolar protein sorting (Vps). Ubiquitylated proteins are typically recognized using one of several different conserved ubiquitin binding modules. Here, we report the crystal structure and ubiquitin binding properties of one such module, the ubiquitin-interacting motif (UIM). We found that UIM peptides from several proteins involved in endocytosis and vacuolar protein sorting including Hrs, Vps27p, Stam1, and Eps15 bound specifically, but with modest affinity (K{sub d} = 0.1-1 mM), to free ubiquitin. Full affinity ubiquitin binding required the presence of conserved acidic patches at the N and C terminus of the UIM, as well as highly conserved central alanine and serine residues. NMR chemical shift perturbation mapping experiments demonstrated that all of these UIM peptides bind to the I44 surface of ubiquitin. The 1.45 {angstrom} resolution crystal structure of the second yeast Vps27p UIM (Vps27p-2) revealed that the ubiquitin-interacting motif forms an amphipathic helix. Although Vps27p-2 is monomeric in solution, the motif unexpectedly crystallized as an antiparallel four-helix bundle, and the potential biological implications of UIM oligomerization are therefore discussed.

3. An update on cell surface proteins containing extensin-motifs.

PubMed

Borassi, Cecilia; Sede, Ana R; Mecchia, Martin A; Salgado Salter, Juan D; Marzol, Eliana; Muschietti, Jorge P; Estevez, Jose M

2016-01-01

In recent years it has become clear that there are several molecular links that interconnect the plant cell surface continuum, which is highly important in many biological processes such as plant growth, development, and interaction with the environment. The plant cell surface continuum can be defined as the space that contains and interlinks the cell wall, plasma membrane and cytoskeleton compartments. In this review, we provide an updated view of cell surface proteins that include modular domains with an extensin (EXT)-motif followed by a cytoplasmic kinase-like domain, known as PERKs (for proline-rich extensin-like receptor kinases); with an EXT-motif and an actin binding domain, known as formins; and with extracellular hybrid-EXTs. We focus our attention on the EXT-motifs with the short sequence Ser-Pro(3-5), which is found in several different protein contexts within the same extracellular space, highlighting a putative conserved structural and functional role. A closer understanding of the dynamic regulation of plant cell surface continuum and its relationship with the downstream signalling cascade is a crucial forthcoming challenge.

4. Event Networks and the Identification of Crime Pattern Motifs

PubMed Central

2015-01-01

In this paper we demonstrate the use of network analysis to characterise patterns of clustering in spatio-temporal events. Such clustering is of both theoretical and practical importance in the study of crime, and forms the basis for a number of preventative strategies. However, existing analytical methods show only that clustering is present in data, while offering little insight into the nature of the patterns present. Here, we show how the classification of pairs of events as close in space and time can be used to define a network, thereby generalising previous approaches. The application of graph-theoretic techniques to these networks can then offer significantly deeper insight into the structure of the data than previously possible. In particular, we focus on the identification of network motifs, which have clear interpretation in terms of spatio-temporal behaviour. Statistical analysis is complicated by the nature of the underlying data, and we provide a method by which appropriate randomised graphs can be generated. Two datasets are used as case studies: maritime piracy at the global scale, and residential burglary in an urban area. In both cases, the same significant 3-vertex motif is found; this result suggests that incidents tend to occur not just in pairs, but in fact in larger groups within a restricted spatio-temporal domain. In the 4-vertex case, different motifs are found to be significant in each case, suggesting that this technique is capable of discriminating between clustering patterns at a finer granularity than previously possible. PMID:26605544

5. A cost-aggregating integer linear program for motif finding.

PubMed

Kingsford, Carl; Zaslavsky, Elena; Singh, Mona

2011-12-01

In the motif finding problem one seeks a set of mutually similar substrings within a collection of biological sequences. This is an important and widely-studied problem, as such shared motifs in DNA often correspond to regulatory elements. We study a combinatorial framework where the goal is to find substrings of a given length such that the sum of their pairwise distances is minimized. We describe a novel integer linear program for the problem, which uses the fact that distances between substrings come from a limited set of possibilities allowing for aggregate consideration of sequence position pairs with the same distances. We show how to tighten its linear programming relaxation by adding an exponential set of constraints and give an efficient separation algorithm that can find violated constraints, thereby showing that the tightened linear program can still be solved in polynomial time. We apply our approach to find optimal solutions for the motif finding problem and show that it is effective in practice in uncovering known transcription factor binding sites.

6. TOPDOM: database of conservatively located domains and motifs in proteins

PubMed Central

Varga, Julia; Dobson, László; Tusnády, Gábor E.

2016-01-01

Summary: The TOPDOM database—originally created as a collection of domains and motifs located consistently on the same side of the membranes in α-helical transmembrane proteins—has been updated and extended by taking into consideration consistently localized domains and motifs in globular proteins, too. By taking advantage of the recently developed CCTOP algorithm to determine the type of a protein and predict topology in case of transmembrane proteins, and by applying a thorough search for domains and motifs as well as utilizing the most up-to-date version of all source databases, we managed to reach a 6-fold increase in the size of the whole database and a 2-fold increase in the number of transmembrane proteins. Availability and implementation: TOPDOM database is available at http://topdom.enzim.hu. The webpage utilizes the common Apache, PHP5 and MySQL software to provide the user interface for accessing and searching the database. The database itself is generated on a high performance computer. Contact: tusnady.gabor@ttk.mta.hu. Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. PMID:27153630

7. Motif structure and cooperation in real-world complex networks

Salehi, Mostafa; Rabiee, Hamid R.; Jalili, Mahdi

2010-12-01

Networks of dynamical nodes serve as generic models for real-world systems in many branches of science ranging from mathematics to physics, technology, sociology and biology. Collective behavior of agents interacting over complex networks is important in many applications. The cooperation between selfish individuals is one of the most interesting collective phenomena. In this paper we address the interplay between the motifs’ cooperation properties and their abundance in a number of real-world networks including yeast protein-protein interaction, human brain, protein structure, email communication, dolphins’ social interaction, Zachary karate club and Net-science coauthorship networks. First, the amount of cooperativity for all possible undirected subgraphs with three to six nodes is calculated. To this end, the evolutionary dynamics of the Prisoner’s Dilemma game is considered and the cooperativity of each subgraph is calculated as the percentage of cooperating agents at the end of the simulation time. Then, the three- to six-node motifs are extracted for each network. The significance of the abundance of a motif, represented by a Z-value, is obtained by comparing them with some properly randomized versions of the original network. We found that there is always a group of motifs showing a significant inverse correlation between their cooperativity amount and Z-value, i.e. the more the Z-value the less the amount of cooperativity. This suggests that networks composed of well-structured units do not have good cooperativity properties.

8. A combinatorial approach to the repertoire of RNA kissing motifs; towards multiplex detection by switching hairpin aptamers

PubMed Central

Durand, Guillaume; Dausse, Eric; Goux, Emma; Fiore, Emmanuelle; Peyrin, Eric; Ravelet, Corinne; Toulmé, Jean-Jacques

2016-01-01

Loop–loop (also known as kissing) interactions between RNA hairpins are involved in several mechanisms in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes such as the regulation of the plasmid copy number or the dimerization of retroviral genomes. The stability of kissing complexes relies on loop parameters (base composition, sequence and size) and base combination at the loop–loop helix - stem junctions. In order to identify kissing partners that could be used as regulatory elements or building blocks of RNA scaffolds, we analysed a pool of 5.2 × 106 RNA hairpins with randomized loops. We identified more than 50 pairs of kissing RNA hairpins. Two kissing motifs, 5′CCNY and 5′RYRY, generate highly stable complexes with KDs in the low nanomolar range. Such motifs were introduced in the apical loop of hairpin aptamers that switch between unfolded and folded state upon binding to their cognate target molecule, hence their name aptaswitch. The aptaswitch–ligand complex is specifically recognized by a second RNA hairpin named aptakiss through loop–loop interaction. Taking advantage of our kissing motif repertoire we engineered aptaswitch–aptakiss modules for purine derivatives, namely adenosine, GTP and theophylline and demonstrated that these molecules can be specifically and simultaneously detected by surface plasmon resonance or by fluorescence anisotropy. PMID:27067541

9. More robust detection of motifs in coexpressed genes by using phylogenetic information

PubMed Central

Monsieurs, Pieter; Thijs, Gert; Fadda, Abeer A; De Keersmaecker, Sigrid CJ; Vanderleyden, Jozef; De Moor, Bart; Marchal, Kathleen

2006-01-01

Background Several motif detection algorithms have been developed to discover overrepresented motifs in sets of coexpressed genes. However, in a noisy gene list, the number of genes containing the motif versus the number lacking the motif might not be sufficiently high to allow detection by classical motif detection tools. To still recover motifs which are not significantly enriched but still present, we developed a procedure in which we use phylogenetic footprinting to first delineate all potential motifs in each gene. Then we mutually compare all detected motifs and identify the ones that are shared by at least a few genes in the data set as potential candidates. Results We applied our methodology to a compiled test data set containing known regulatory motifs and to two biological data sets derived from genome wide expression studies. By executing four consecutive steps of 1) identifying conserved regions in orthologous intergenic regions, 2) aligning these conserved regions, 3) clustering the conserved regions containing similar regulatory regions followed by extraction of the regulatory motifs and 4) screening the input intergenic sequences with detected regulatory motif models, our methodology proves to be a powerful tool for detecting regulatory motifs when a low signal to noise ratio is present in the input data set. Comparing our results with two other motif detection algorithms points out the robustness of our algorithm. Conclusion We developed an approach that can reliably identify multiple regulatory motifs lacking a high degree of overrepresentation in a set of coexpressed genes (motifs belonging to sparsely connected hubs in the regulatory network) by exploiting the advantages of using both coexpression and phylogenetic information. PMID:16549017

10. Competition of Bergman-type approximants with other packing motifs in the Cu-Zr system

Zhang, Feng; Jin, Min; Wang, X. W.; Wang, Cai-Zhuang; Kramer, M. J.; Mendelev, M. I.; Ho, Kai-Ming

2012-02-01

Knowledge about the topological and chemical ordering in metallic liquids and glasses is essential in predicting phase selection and understanding glass formation dynamics. Taking the Cu-Zr system as an example, previous studies have established Bergman-type medium-range ordering (MRO) from a structural analysis with cluster alignment methods [1]. In this study, we examine the thermodynamic stability of a crystalline approximant of Bergman-type quasicrystals [2] against packing geometries existing in other intermetallic compounds for a wide range of Cu compositions. The most stable structures for each structural motif at each Cu composition are obtained using an efficient genetic-algorithm search. Our results show that the Bergman-type approximant structure is thermodynamically favored over other packing geometries at the glass-forming region with Cu compositions around 65%, reaffirming the Bergman-type MRO is the lowest energy in Cu-Zr glasses.[4pt] [1] X. W. Fang, C. Z. Wang, Y. X. Yao, Z. J. Ding, and K. M. Ho, Phys. Rev. B 82, 184204 (2010).[0pt] [2] G. Bergman J. L. T. Waugh, and L. Pauling, Acta Cryst. 10, 254 (1957).

11. Evolution of an insect-specific GROUCHO-interaction motif in the ENGRAILED selector protein.

PubMed

Hittinger, Chris Todd; Carroll, Sean B

2008-01-01

Animal morphology evolves through alterations in the genetic regulatory networks that control development. Regulatory connections are commonly added, subtracted, or modified via mutations in cis-regulatory elements, but several cases are also known where transcription factors have gained or lost activity-modulating peptide motifs. In order to better assess the role of novel transcription factor peptide motifs in evolution, we searched for synapomorphic motifs in the homeotic selectors of Drosophila melanogaster and related insects. Here, we describe an evolutionarily novel GROUCHO (GRO)-interaction motif in the ENGRAILED (EN) selector protein. This "ehIFRPF" motif is not homologous to the previously characterized "engrailed homology 1" (eh1) GRO-interaction motif of EN. This second motif is an insect-specific "WRPW"-type motif that has been maintained by purifying selection in at least the dipteran/lepidopteran lineage. We demonstrate that this motif contributes to in vivo repression of the wingless (wg) target gene and to interaction with GRO in vitro. The acquisition and conservation of this auxiliary peptide motif shows how the number and activity of short peptide motifs can evolve in transcription factors while existing regulatory functions are maintained.

12. Motif-based analysis of large nucleotide data sets using MEME-ChIP.

PubMed

Ma, Wenxiu; Noble, William S; Bailey, Timothy L

2014-01-01

MEME-ChIP is a web-based tool for analyzing motifs in large DNA or RNA data sets. It can analyze peak regions identified by ChIP-seq, cross-linking sites identified by CLIP-seq and related assays, as well as sets of genomic regions selected using other criteria. MEME-ChIP performs de novo motif discovery, motif enrichment analysis, motif location analysis and motif clustering, providing a comprehensive picture of the DNA or RNA motifs that are enriched in the input sequences. MEME-ChIP performs two complementary types of de novo motif discovery: weight matrix-based discovery for high accuracy; and word-based discovery for high sensitivity. Motif enrichment analysis using DNA or RNA motifs from human, mouse, worm, fly and other model organisms provides even greater sensitivity. MEME-ChIP's interactive HTML output groups and aligns significant motifs to ease interpretation. This protocol takes less than 3 h, and it provides motif discovery approaches that are distinct and complementary to other online methods. PMID:24853928

13. Multiple Weak Linear Motifs Enhance Recruitment and Processivity in SPOP-Mediated Substrate Ubiquitination.

PubMed

Pierce, Wendy K; Grace, Christy R; Lee, Jihun; Nourse, Amanda; Marzahn, Melissa R; Watson, Edmond R; High, Anthony A; Peng, Junmin; Schulman, Brenda A; Mittag, Tanja

2016-03-27

Primary sequence motifs, with millimolar affinities for binding partners, are abundant in disordered protein regions. In multivalent interactions, such weak linear motifs can cooperate to recruit binding partners via avidity effects. If linear motifs recruit modifying enzymes, optimal placement of weak motifs may regulate access to modification sites. Weak motifs may thus exert physiological relevance stronger than that suggested by their affinities, but molecular mechanisms of their function are still poorly understood. Herein, we use the N-terminal disordered region of the Hedgehog transcriptional regulator Gli3 (Gli3(1-90)) to determine the role of weak motifs encoded in its primary sequence for the recruitment of its ubiquitin ligase CRL3(SPOP) and the subsequent effect on ubiquitination efficiency. The substrate adaptor SPOP binds linear motifs through its MATH (meprin and TRAF homology) domain and forms higher-order oligomers through its oligomerization domains, rendering SPOP multivalent for its substrates. Gli3 has multiple weak SPOP binding motifs. We map three such motifs in Gli3(1-90), the weakest of which has a millimolar dissociation constant. Multivalency of ligase and substrate for each other facilitates enhanced ligase recruitment and stimulates Gli3(1-90) ubiquitination in in vitro ubiquitination assays. We speculate that the weak motifs enable processivity through avidity effects and by providing steric access to lysine residues that are otherwise not prioritized for polyubiquitination. Weak motifs may generally be employed in multivalent systems to act as gatekeepers regulating post-translational modification. PMID:26475525

14. Motif-based analysis of large nucleotide data sets using MEME-ChIP

PubMed Central

Ma, Wenxiu; Noble, William S; Bailey, Timothy L

2014-01-01

MEME-ChIP is a web-based tool for analyzing motifs in large DNA or RNA data sets. It can analyze peak regions identified by ChIP-seq, cross-linking sites identified by cLIP-seq and related assays, as well as sets of genomic regions selected using other criteria. MEME-ChIP performs de novo motif discovery, motif enrichment analysis, motif location analysis and motif clustering, providing a comprehensive picture of the DNA or RNA motifs that are enriched in the input sequences. MEME-ChIP performs two complementary types of de novo motif discovery: weight matrix–based discovery for high accuracy; and word-based discovery for high sensitivity. Motif enrichment analysis using DNA or RNA motifs from human, mouse, worm, fly and other model organisms provides even greater sensitivity. MEME-ChIP’s interactive HTML output groups and aligns significant motifs to ease interpretation. this protocol takes less than 3 h, and it provides motif discovery approaches that are distinct and complementary to other online methods. PMID:24853928

15. A generalization of substitution evolution models of nucleotides to genetic motifs.

PubMed

Benard, Emmanuel; Michel, Christian J

2011-11-01

We generalize here the classical stochastic substitution models of nucleotides to genetic motifs of any size. This generalized model gives the analytical occurrence probabilities of genetic motifs as a function of a substitution matrix containing up to three formal parameters (substitution rates) per motif site and of an initial occurrence probability vector of genetic motifs. The evolution direction can be direct (past-present) or inverse (present-past). This extension has been made due to the identification of a Kronecker relation between the nucleotide substitution matrices and the motif substitution matrices. The evolution models for motifs of size 4 (tetranucleotides) and 5 (pentanucleotides) are now included in the SEGM (Stochastic Evolution of Genetic Motifs) web server.

16. Co-evolution of segregation guide DNA motifs and the FtsK translocase in bacteria: identification of the atypical Lactococcus lactis KOPS motif

PubMed Central

Nolivos, Sophie; Touzain, Fabrice; Pages, Carine; Coddeville, Michele; Rousseau, Philippe; El Karoui, Meriem; Le Bourgeois, Pascal; Cornet, François

2012-01-01

Bacteria use the global bipolarization of their chromosomes into replichores to control the dynamics and segregation of their genome during the cell cycle. This involves the control of protein activities by recognition of specific short DNA motifs whose orientation along the chromosome is highly skewed. The KOPS motifs act in chromosome segregation by orienting the activity of the FtsK DNA translocase towards the terminal replichore junction. KOPS motifs have been identified in γ-Proteobacteria and in Bacillus subtilis as closely related G-rich octamers. We have identified the KOPS motif of Lactococcus lactis, a model bacteria of the Streptococcaceae family harbouring a compact and low GC% genome. This motif, 5′-GAAGAAG-3, was predicted in silico using the occurrence and skew characteristics of known KOPS motifs. We show that it is specifically recognized by L. lactis FtsK in vitro and controls its activity in vivo. L. lactis KOPS is thus an A-rich heptamer motif. Our results show that KOPS-controlled chromosome segregation is conserved in Streptococcaceae but that KOPS may show important variation in sequence and length between bacterial families. This suggests that FtsK adapts to its host genome by selecting motifs with convenient occurrence frequencies and orientation skews to orient its activity. PMID:22373923

17. DNA nanotechnology based on i-motif structures.

PubMed

Dong, Yuanchen; Yang, Zhongqiang; Liu, Dongsheng

2014-06-17

CONSPECTUS: Most biological processes happen at the nanometer scale, and understanding the energy transformations and material transportation mechanisms within living organisms has proved challenging. To better understand the secrets of life, researchers have investigated artificial molecular motors and devices over the past decade because such systems can mimic certain biological processes. DNA nanotechnology based on i-motif structures is one system that has played an important role in these investigations. In this Account, we summarize recent advances in functional DNA nanotechnology based on i-motif structures. The i-motif is a DNA quadruplex that occurs as four stretches of cytosine repeat sequences form C·CH(+) base pairs, and their stabilization requires slightly acidic conditions. This unique property has produced the first DNA molecular motor driven by pH changes. The motor is reliable, and studies show that it is capable of millisecond running speeds, comparable to the speed of natural protein motors. With careful design, the output of these types of motors was combined to drive micrometer-sized cantilevers bend. Using established DNA nanostructure assembly and functionalization methods, researchers can easily integrate the motor within other DNA assembled structures and functional units, producing DNA molecular devices with new functions such as suprahydrophobic/suprahydrophilic smart surfaces that switch, intelligent nanopores triggered by pH changes, molecular logic gates, and DNA nanosprings. Recently, researchers have produced motors driven by light and electricity, which have allowed DNA motors to be integrated within silicon-based nanodevices. Moreover, some devices based on i-motif structures have proven useful for investigating processes within living cells. The pH-responsiveness of the i-motif structure also provides a way to control the stepwise assembly of DNA nanostructures. In addition, because of the stability of the i-motif, this

18. DNA nanotechnology based on i-motif structures.

PubMed

Dong, Yuanchen; Yang, Zhongqiang; Liu, Dongsheng

2014-06-17

CONSPECTUS: Most biological processes happen at the nanometer scale, and understanding the energy transformations and material transportation mechanisms within living organisms has proved challenging. To better understand the secrets of life, researchers have investigated artificial molecular motors and devices over the past decade because such systems can mimic certain biological processes. DNA nanotechnology based on i-motif structures is one system that has played an important role in these investigations. In this Account, we summarize recent advances in functional DNA nanotechnology based on i-motif structures. The i-motif is a DNA quadruplex that occurs as four stretches of cytosine repeat sequences form C·CH(+) base pairs, and their stabilization requires slightly acidic conditions. This unique property has produced the first DNA molecular motor driven by pH changes. The motor is reliable, and studies show that it is capable of millisecond running speeds, comparable to the speed of natural protein motors. With careful design, the output of these types of motors was combined to drive micrometer-sized cantilevers bend. Using established DNA nanostructure assembly and functionalization methods, researchers can easily integrate the motor within other DNA assembled structures and functional units, producing DNA molecular devices with new functions such as suprahydrophobic/suprahydrophilic smart surfaces that switch, intelligent nanopores triggered by pH changes, molecular logic gates, and DNA nanosprings. Recently, researchers have produced motors driven by light and electricity, which have allowed DNA motors to be integrated within silicon-based nanodevices. Moreover, some devices based on i-motif structures have proven useful for investigating processes within living cells. The pH-responsiveness of the i-motif structure also provides a way to control the stepwise assembly of DNA nanostructures. In addition, because of the stability of the i-motif, this

19. Sequence-based classification using discriminatory motif feature selection.

PubMed

Xiong, Hao; Capurso, Daniel; Sen, Saunak; Segal, Mark R

2011-01-01

Most existing methods for sequence-based classification use exhaustive feature generation, employing, for example, all k-mer patterns. The motivation behind such (enumerative) approaches is to minimize the potential for overlooking important features. However, there are shortcomings to this strategy. First, practical constraints limit the scope of exhaustive feature generation to patterns of length ≤ k, such that potentially important, longer (> k) predictors are not considered. Second, features so generated exhibit strong dependencies, which can complicate understanding of derived classification rules. Third, and most importantly, numerous irrelevant features are created. These concerns can compromise prediction and interpretation. While remedies have been proposed, they tend to be problem-specific and not broadly applicable. Here, we develop a generally applicable methodology, and an attendant software pipeline, that is predicated on discriminatory motif finding. In addition to the traditional training and validation partitions, our framework entails a third level of data partitioning, a discovery partition. A discriminatory motif finder is used on sequences and associated class labels in the discovery partition to yield a (small) set of features. These features are then used as inputs to a classifier in the training partition. Finally, performance assessment occurs on the validation partition. Important attributes of our approach are its modularity (any discriminatory motif finder and any classifier can be deployed) and its universality (all data, including sequences that are unaligned and/or of unequal length, can be accommodated). We illustrate our approach on two nucleosome occupancy datasets and a protein solubility dataset, previously analyzed using enumerative feature generation. Our method achieves excellent performance results, with and without optimization of classifier tuning parameters. A Python pipeline implementing the approach is available at

20. Present status of quinoxaline motifs: excellent pathfinders in therapeutic medicine.

PubMed

Ajani, Olayinka Oyewale

2014-10-01

Quinoxalines belong to a class of excellent heterocyclic scaffolds owing to their wide biological properties and diverse therapeutic applications in medicinal research. They are complementary in shapes and charges to numerous biomolecules they interact with, thereby resulting in increased binding affinity. The pharmacokinetic properties of drugs bearing quinoxaline cores have shown them to be relatively easy to administer either as intramuscular solutions, oral capsules or rectal suppositories. This work deals with recent advances in the synthesis and pharmacological diversities of quinoxaline motifs which might pave ways for novel drugs development.

1. Nucleic Acid i-Motif Structures in Analytical Chemistry.

PubMed

Alba, Joan Josep; Sadurní, Anna; Gargallo, Raimundo

2016-09-01

Under the appropriate experimental conditions of pH and temperature, cytosine-rich segments in DNA or RNA sequences may produce a characteristic folded structure known as an i-motif. Besides its potential role in vivo, which is still under investigation, this structure has attracted increasing interest in other fields due to its sharp, fast and reversible pH-driven conformational changes. This "on/off" switch at molecular level is being used in nanotechnology and analytical chemistry to develop nanomachines and sensors, respectively. This paper presents a review of the latest applications of this structure in the field of chemical analysis.

2. RAP: Accurate and Fast Motif Finding Based on Protein-Binding Microarray Data

PubMed Central

Orenstein, Yaron; Mick, Eran

2013-01-01

Abstract The novel high-throughput technology of protein-binding microarrays (PBMs) measures binding intensity of a transcription factor to thousands of DNA probe sequences. Several algorithms have been developed to extract binding-site motifs from these data. Such motifs are commonly represented by positional weight matrices. Previous studies have shown that the motifs produced by these algorithms are either accurate in predicting in vitro binding or similar to previously published motifs, but not both. In this work, we present a new simple algorithm to infer binding-site motifs from PBM data. It outperforms prior art both in predicting in vitro binding and in producing motifs similar to literature motifs. Our results challenge previous claims that motifs with lower information content are better models for transcription-factor binding specificity. Moreover, we tested the effect of motif length and side positions flanking the “core” motif in the binding site. We show that side positions have a significant effect and should not be removed, as commonly done. A large drop in the results quality of all methods is observed between in vitro and in vivo binding prediction. The software is available on acgt.cs.tau.ac.il/rap. PMID:23464877

3. Automated protein motif generation in the structure-based protein function prediction tool ProMOL.

PubMed

Osipovitch, Mikhail; Lambrecht, Mitchell; Baker, Cameron; Madha, Shariq; Mills, Jeffrey L; Craig, Paul A; Bernstein, Herbert J

2015-12-01

ProMOL, a plugin for the PyMOL molecular graphics system, is a structure-based protein function prediction tool. ProMOL includes a set of routines for building motif templates that are used for screening query structures for enzyme active sites. Previously, each motif template was generated manually and required supervision in the optimization of parameters for sensitivity and selectivity. We developed an algorithm and workflow for the automation of motif building and testing routines in ProMOL. The algorithm uses a set of empirically derived parameters for optimization and requires little user intervention. The automated motif generation algorithm was first tested in a performance comparison with a set of manually generated motifs based on identical active sites from the same 112 PDB entries. The two sets of motifs were equally effective in identifying alignments with homologs and in rejecting alignments with unrelated structures. A second set of 296 active site motifs were generated automatically, based on Catalytic Site Atlas entries with literature citations, as an expansion of the library of existing manually generated motif templates. The new motif templates exhibited comparable performance to the existing ones in terms of hit rates against native structures, homologs with the same EC and Pfam designations, and randomly selected unrelated structures with a different EC designation at the first EC digit, as well as in terms of RMSD values obtained from local structural alignments of motifs and query structures. This research is supported by NIH grant GM078077. PMID:26573864

4. Intragenic motifs regulate the transcriptional complexity of Pkhd1/PKHD1

PubMed Central

Boddu, Ravindra; Yang, Chaozhe; O’Connor, Amber K.; Hendrickson, Robert Curtis; Boone, Braden; Cui, Xiangqin; Garcia-Gonzalez, Miguel; Igarashi, Peter; Onuchic, Luiz F.; Germino, Gregory G.

2014-01-01

Autosomal recessive polycystic kidney disease (ARPKD) results from mutations in the human PKHD1 gene. Both this gene, and its mouse ortholog, Pkhd1, are primarily expressed in renal and biliary ductal structures. The mouse protein product, fibrocystin/polyductin complex (FPC), is a 445-kDa protein encoded by a 67-exon transcript that spans >500 kb of genomic DNA. In the current study, we observed multiple alternatively spliced Pkhd1 transcripts that varied in size and exon composition in embryonic mouse kidney, liver, and placenta samples, as well as among adult mouse pancreas, brain, heart, lung, testes, liver, and kidney. Using reverse transcription PCR and RNASeq, we identified 22 novel Pkhd1 kidney transcripts with unique exon junctions. Various mechanisms of alternative splicing were observed, including exon skipping, use of alternate acceptor/donor splice sites, and inclusion of novel exons. Bioinformatic analyses identified, and exon-trapping minigene experiments validated, consensus binding sites for serine/arginine-rich proteins that modulate alternative splicing. Using site-directed mutagenesis, we examined the functional importance of selected splice enhancers. In addition, we demonstrated that many of the novel transcripts were polysome bound, thus likely translated. Finally, we determined that the human PKHD1 R760H missense variant alters a splice enhancer motif that disrupts exon splicing in vitro and is predicted to truncate the protein. Taken together, these data provide evidence of the complex transcriptional regulation of Pkhd1/PKHD1 and identified motifs that regulate its splicing. Our studies indicate that Pkhd1/PKHD1 transcription is modulated, in part by intragenic factors, suggesting that aberrant PKHD1 splicing represents an unappreciated pathogenic mechanism in ARPKD. PMID:24984783

5. Sequence Bundles: a novel method for visualising, discovering and exploring sequence motifs

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background We introduce Sequence Bundles--a novel data visualisation method for representing multiple sequence alignments (MSAs). We identify and address key limitations of the existing bioinformatics data visualisation methods (i.e. the Sequence Logo) by enabling Sequence Bundles to give salient visual expression to sequence motifs and other data features, which would otherwise remain hidden. Methods For the development of Sequence Bundles we employed research-led information design methodologies. Sequences are encoded as uninterrupted, semi-opaque lines plotted on a 2-dimensional reconfigurable grid. Each line represents a single sequence. The thickness and opacity of the stack at each residue in each position indicates the level of conservation and the lines' curved paths expose patterns in correlation and functionality. Several MSAs can be visualised in a composite image. The Sequence Bundles method is designed to favour a tangible, continuous and intuitive display of information. Results We have developed a software demonstration application for generating a Sequence Bundles visualisation of MSAs provided for the BioVis 2013 redesign contest. A subsequent exploration of the visualised line patterns allowed for the discovery of a number of interesting features in the dataset. Reported features include the extreme conservation of sequences displaying a specific residue and bifurcations of the consensus sequence. Conclusions Sequence Bundles is a novel method for visualisation of MSAs and the discovery of sequence motifs. It can aid in generating new insight and hypothesis making. Sequence Bundles is well disposed for future implementation as an interactive visual analytics software, which can complement existing visualisation tools. PMID:25237395

6. Regulation of amyloid precursor protein processing by its KFERQ motif

PubMed Central

Park, Ji-Seon; Kim, Dong-Hou; Yoon, Seung-Yong

2016-01-01

Understanding of trafficking, processing, and degradation mechanisms of amyloid precursor protein (APP) is important because APP can be processed to produce β-amyloid (Aβ), a key pathogenic molecule in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Here, we found that APP contains KFERQ motif at its C-terminus, a consensus sequence for chaperone-mediated autophagy (CMA) or microautophagy which are another types of autophagy for degradation of pathogenic molecules in neurodegenerative diseases. Deletion of KFERQ in APP increased C-terminal fragments (CTFs) and secreted N-terminal fragments of APP and kept it away from lysosomes. KFERQ deletion did not abolish the interaction of APP or its cleaved products with heat shock cognate protein 70 (Hsc70), a protein necessary for CMA or microautophagy. These findings suggest that KFERQ motif is important for normal processing and degradation of APP to preclude the accumulation of APP-CTFs although it may not be important for CMA or microautophagy. [BMB Reports 2016;49(6): 337-342] PMID:26779997

7. Ultrasensitive response motifs: basic amplifiers in molecular signalling networks

PubMed Central

Zhang, Qiang; Bhattacharya, Sudin; Andersen, Melvin E.

2013-01-01

Multi-component signal transduction pathways and gene regulatory circuits underpin integrated cellular responses to perturbations. A recurring set of network motifs serve as the basic building blocks of these molecular signalling networks. This review focuses on ultrasensitive response motifs (URMs) that amplify small percentage changes in the input signal into larger percentage changes in the output response. URMs generally possess a sigmoid input–output relationship that is steeper than the Michaelis–Menten type of response and is often approximated by the Hill function. Six types of URMs can be commonly found in intracellular molecular networks and each has a distinct kinetic mechanism for signal amplification. These URMs are: (i) positive cooperative binding, (ii) homo-multimerization, (iii) multistep signalling, (iv) molecular titration, (v) zero-order covalent modification cycle and (vi) positive feedback. Multiple URMs can be combined to generate highly switch-like responses. Serving as basic signal amplifiers, these URMs are essential for molecular circuits to produce complex nonlinear dynamics, including multistability, robust adaptation and oscillation. These dynamic properties are in turn responsible for higher-level cellular behaviours, such as cell fate determination, homeostasis and biological rhythm. PMID:23615029

8. A motif for reversible nitric oxide interactions in metalloenzymes.

PubMed

Zhang, Shiyu; Melzer, Marie M; Sen, S Nermin; Çelebi-Ölçüm, Nihan; Warren, Timothy H

2016-07-01

Nitric oxide (NO) participates in numerous biological processes, such as signalling in the respiratory system and vasodilation in the cardiovascular system. Many metal-mediated processes involve direct reaction of NO to form a metal-nitrosyl (M-NO), as occurs at the Fe(2+) centres of soluble guanylate cyclase or cytochrome c oxidase. However, some copper electron-transfer proteins that bear a type 1 Cu site (His2Cu-Cys) reversibly bind NO by an unknown motif. Here, we use model complexes of type 1 Cu sites based on tris(pyrazolyl)borate copper thiolates [Cu(II)]-SR to unravel the factors involved in NO reactivity. Addition of NO provides the fully characterized S-nitrosothiol adduct [Cu(I)](κ(1)-N(O)SR), which reversibly loses NO on purging with an inert gas. Computational analysis outlines a low-barrier pathway for the capture and release of NO. These findings suggest a new motif for reversible binding of NO at bioinorganic metal centres that can interconvert NO and RSNO molecular signals at copper sites. PMID:27325092

9. The discodermolide hairpin structure flows from conformationally stable modular motifs.

PubMed

Jogalekar, Ashutosh S; Kriel, Frederik H; Shi, Qi; Cornett, Ben; Cicero, Daniel; Snyder, James P

2010-01-14

(+)-Discodermolide (DDM), a polyketide macrolide from marine sponge, is a potent microtubule assembly promoter. Reported solid-state, solution, and protein-bound DDM conformations reveal the unusual result that a common hairpin conformational motif exists in all three microenvironments. No other flexible microtubule binding agent exhibits such constancy of conformation. In the present study, we combine force-field conformational searches with NMR deconvolution in different solvents to compare DDM conformers with those observed in other environments. While several conformational families are perceived, the hairpin form dominates. The stability of this motif is dictated primarily by steric factors arising from repeated modular segments in DDM composed of the C(Me)-CHX-C(Me) fragment. Furthermore, docking protocols were utilized to probe the DDM binding mode in beta-tubulin. A previously suggested pose is substantiated (Pose-1), while an alternative (Pose-2) has been identified. SAR analysis for DDM analogues differentiates the two poses and suggests that Pose-2 is better able to accommodate the biodata.

10. Motifs emerge from function in model gene regulatory networks

PubMed Central

Burda, Z.; Krzywicki, A.; Martin, O. C.; Zagorski, M.

2011-01-01

Gene regulatory networks allow the control of gene expression patterns in living cells. The study of network topology has revealed that certain subgraphs of interactions or “motifs” appear at anomalously high frequencies. We ask here whether this phenomenon may emerge because of the functions carried out by these networks. Given a framework for describing regulatory interactions and dynamics, we consider in the space of all regulatory networks those that have prescribed functional capabilities. Markov Chain Monte Carlo sampling is then used to determine how these functional networks lead to specific motif statistics in the interactions. In the case where the regulatory networks are constrained to exhibit multistability, we find a high frequency of gene pairs that are mutually inhibitory and self-activating. In contrast, networks constrained to have periodic gene expression patterns (mimicking for instance the cell cycle) have a high frequency of bifan-like motifs involving four genes with at least one activating and one inhibitory interaction. PMID:21960444

11. Proline Rich Motifs as Drug Targets in Immune Mediated Disorders

PubMed Central

Srinivasan, Mythily; Dunker, A. Keith

2012-01-01

The current version of the human immunome network consists of nearly 1400 interactions involving approximately 600 proteins. Intermolecular interactions mediated by proline-rich motifs (PRMs) are observed in many facets of the immune response. The proline-rich regions are known to preferentially adopt a polyproline type II helical conformation, an extended structure that facilitates transient intermolecular interactions such as signal transduction, antigen recognition, cell-cell communication and cytoskeletal organization. The propensity of both the side chain and the backbone carbonyls of the polyproline type II helix to participate in the interface interaction makes it an excellent recognition motif. An advantage of such distinct chemical features is that the interactions can be discriminatory even in the absence of high affinities. Indeed, the immune response is mediated by well-orchestrated low-affinity short-duration intermolecular interactions. The proline-rich regions are predominantly localized in the solvent-exposed regions such as the loops, intrinsically disordered regions, or between domains that constitute the intermolecular interface. Peptide mimics of the PRM have been suggested as potential antagonists of intermolecular interactions. In this paper, we discuss novel PRM-mediated interactions in the human immunome that potentially serve as attractive targets for immunomodulation and drug development for inflammatory and autoimmune pathologies. PMID:22666276

12. Prevalent RNA recognition motif duplication in the human genome.

PubMed

Tsai, Yihsuan S; Gomez, Shawn M; Wang, Zefeng

2014-05-01

The sequence-specific recognition of RNA by proteins is mediated through various RNA binding domains, with the RNA recognition motif (RRM) being the most frequent and present in >50% of RNA-binding proteins (RBPs). Many RBPs contain multiple RRMs, and it is unclear how each RRM contributes to the binding specificity of the entire protein. We found that RRMs within the same RBP (i.e., sibling RRMs) tend to have significantly higher similarity than expected by chance. Sibling RRM pairs from RBPs shared by multiple species tend to have lower similarity than those found only in a single species, suggesting that multiple RRMs within the same protein might arise from domain duplication followed by divergence through random mutations. This finding is exemplified by a recent RRM domain duplication in DAZ proteins and an ancient duplication in PABP proteins. Additionally, we found that different similarities between sibling RRMs are associated with distinct functions of an RBP and that the RBPs tend to contain repetitive sequences with low complexity. Taken together, this study suggests that the number of RBPs with multiple RRMs has expanded in mammals and that the multiple sibling RRMs may recognize similar target motifs in a cooperative manner.

13. Discovering interacting domains and motifs in protein-protein interactions.

PubMed

Hugo, Willy; Sung, Wing-Kin; Ng, See-Kiong

2013-01-01

Many important biological processes, such as the signaling pathways, require protein-protein interactions (PPIs) that are designed for fast response to stimuli. These interactions are usually transient, easily formed, and disrupted, yet specific. Many of these transient interactions involve the binding of a protein domain to a short stretch (3-10) of amino acid residues, which can be characterized by a sequence pattern, i.e., a short linear motif (SLiM). We call these interacting domains and motifs domain-SLiM interactions. Existing methods have focused on discovering SLiMs in the interacting proteins' sequence data. With the recent increase in protein structures, we have a new opportunity to detect SLiMs directly from the proteins' 3D structures instead of their linear sequences. In this chapter, we describe a computational method called SLiMDIet to directly detect SLiMs on domain interfaces extracted from 3D structures of PPIs. SLiMDIet comprises two steps: (1) interaction interfaces belonging to the same domain are extracted and grouped together using structural clustering and (2) the extracted interaction interfaces in each cluster are structurally aligned to extract the corresponding SLiM. Using SLiMDIet, de novo SLiMs interacting with protein domains can be computationally detected from structurally clustered domain-SLiM interactions for PFAM domains which have available 3D structures in the PDB database.

14. Identifying DNA Binding Motifs by Combining Data from Different Sources

SciTech Connect

Mao, Linyong; Resat, Haluk; Nagib Callaos; Katsuhisa Horimoto; Jake Chen; Amy Sze Chan

2004-07-19

A transcription factor regulates the expression of its target genes by binding to their operator regions. It functions by affecting the interactions between RNA polymerases and the gene's promoter. Many transcription factors bind to their targets by recognizing a specific DNA sequence pattern, which is referred to as a consensus sequence or a motif. Since it would remove the possible biases, combining biological data from different sources can be expected to improve the quality of the information extracted from the biological data. We analyzed the microarray gene expression data and the organism's genome sequence jointly to determine the transcription factor recognition sequences with more accuracy. Utilizing such a data integration approach, we have investigated the regulation of the photosynthesis genes of the purple non-sulphur photosynthetic bacterium Rhodobacter sphaeroides. The photosynthesis genes in this organism are tightly regulated as a function of environmental growth conditions by three major regulatory systems, PrrB/PrrA, AppA/PpsR and FnrL. In this study, we have detected a previously undefined PrrA consensus sequence, improved the previously known DNA-binding motif of PpsR, and confirmed the consensus sequence of the global regulator FnrL.

15. Structural complexity of Dengue virus untranslated regions: cis-acting RNA motifs and pseudoknot interactions modulating functionality of the viral genome

PubMed Central

Sztuba-Solinska, Joanna; Teramoto, Tadahisa; Rausch, Jason W.; Shapiro, Bruce A.; Padmanabhan, Radhakrishnan; Le Grice, Stuart F. J.

2013-01-01

The Dengue virus (DENV) genome contains multiple cis-acting elements required for translation and replication. Previous studies indicated that a 719-nt subgenomic minigenome (DENV-MINI) is an efficient template for translation and (−) strand RNA synthesis in vitro. We performed a detailed structural analysis of DENV-MINI RNA, combining chemical acylation techniques, Pb2+ ion-induced hydrolysis and site-directed mutagenesis. Our results highlight protein-independent 5′–3′ terminal interactions involving hybridization between recognized cis-acting motifs. Probing analyses identified tandem dumbbell structures (DBs) within the 3′ terminus spaced by single-stranded regions, internal loops and hairpins with embedded GNRA-like motifs. Analysis of conserved motifs and top loops (TLs) of these dumbbells, and their proposed interactions with downstream pseudoknot (PK) regions, predicted an H-type pseudoknot involving TL1 of the 5′ DB and the complementary region, PK2. As disrupting the TL1/PK2 interaction, via ‘flipping’ mutations of PK2, previously attenuated DENV replication, this pseudoknot may participate in regulation of RNA synthesis. Computer modeling implied that this motif might function as autonomous structural/regulatory element. In addition, our studies targeting elements of the 3′ DB and its complementary region PK1 indicated that communication between 5′–3′ terminal regions strongly depends on structure and sequence composition of the 5′ cyclization region. PMID:23531545

16. Hydrogen-bond motifs in the crystals of hydrophobic amino acids.

PubMed

Fábián, László; Chisholm, James A; Galek, Peter T A; Motherwell, W D Samuel; Feeder, Neil

2008-08-01

A computer program has been developed to survey a set of crystal structures for hydrogen-bond motifs. Possible ring and chain motifs are generated automatically from a user-defined list of interacting molecular fragments and intermolecular interactions. The new program was used to analyse the hydrogen-bond networks in the crystals of 52 zwitterionic alpha-amino acids. All the possible chain motifs (repeating 1-4 molecules) are frequent, while the frequency of ring motifs (2-6 molecules) ranges from 0 to 85% of the structures. The list of motifs displayed by each structure reveals structural similarities and it can be used to compare polymorphs. The motifs formed in cocrystals of alpha-amino acids and in crystals of beta- and gamma-amino acids are similar to those of alpha-amino acids. PMID:18641453

17. PhyME: a software tool for finding motifs in sets of orthologous sequences.

PubMed

Sinha, Saurabh

2007-01-01

Discovery of transcription factor binding sites is a crucial and challenging problem in bioinformatics. Several computational tools have been developed for this problem, popularly known as the motif-finding problem. PhyME is an ab initio motif-finding algorithm, which finds overrepresented motifs in input sequences while accounting for their evolutionary conservation in orthologs of those sequences. Here, we describe the usage of this algorithm, publicly available as a Linux-based implementation. PMID:17993682

18. ELM 2016--data update and new functionality of the eukaryotic linear motif resource.

PubMed

Dinkel, Holger; Van Roey, Kim; Michael, Sushama; Kumar, Manjeet; Uyar, Bora; Altenberg, Brigitte; Milchevskaya, Vladislava; Schneider, Melanie; Kühn, Helen; Behrendt, Annika; Dahl, Sophie Luise; Damerell, Victoria; Diebel, Sandra; Kalman, Sara; Klein, Steffen; Knudsen, Arne C; Mäder, Christina; Merrill, Sabina; Staudt, Angelina; Thiel, Vera; Welti, Lukas; Davey, Norman E; Diella, Francesca; Gibson, Toby J

2016-01-01

The Eukaryotic Linear Motif (ELM) resource (http://elm.eu.org) is a manually curated database of short linear motifs (SLiMs). In this update, we present the latest additions to this resource, along with more improvements to the web interface. ELM 2016 contains more than 240 different motif classes with over 2700 experimentally validated instances, manually curated from more than 2400 scientific publications. In addition, more data have been made available as individually searchable pages and are downloadable in various formats.

19. Repulsive parallel MCMC algorithm for discovering diverse motifs from large sequence sets

PubMed Central

Ikebata, Hisaki; Yoshida, Ryo

2015-01-01

Motivation: The motif discovery problem consists of finding recurring patterns of short strings in a set of nucleotide sequences. This classical problem is receiving renewed attention as most early motif discovery methods lack the ability to handle large data of recent genome-wide ChIP studies. New ChIP-tailored methods focus on reducing computation time and pay little regard to the accuracy of motif detection. Unlike such methods, our method focuses on increasing the detection accuracy while maintaining the computation efficiency at an acceptable level. The major advantage of our method is that it can mine diverse multiple motifs undetectable by current methods. Results: The repulsive parallel Markov chain Monte Carlo (RPMCMC) algorithm that we propose is a parallel version of the widely used Gibbs motif sampler. RPMCMC is run on parallel interacting motif samplers. A repulsive force is generated when different motifs produced by different samplers near each other. Thus, different samplers explore different motifs. In this way, we can detect much more diverse motifs than conventional methods can. Through application to 228 transcription factor ChIP-seq datasets of the ENCODE project, we show that the RPMCMC algorithm can find many reliable cofactor interacting motifs that existing methods are unable to discover. Availability and implementation: A C++ implementation of RPMCMC and discovered cofactor motifs for the 228 ENCODE ChIP-seq datasets are available from http://daweb.ism.ac.jp/yoshidalab/motif. Contact: ikebata.hisaki@ism.ac.jp, yoshidar@ism.ac.jp Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available from Bioinformatics online. PMID:25583120

20. Methods and compositions for targeting macromolecules into the nucleus

DOEpatents

Chook, Yuh Min

2013-06-25

The present invention includes compositions, methods and kits for directing an agent across the nuclear membrane of a cell. The present invention includes a Karyopherin beta2 translocation motif in a polypeptide having a slightly positively charged region or a slightly hydrophobic region and one or more R/K/H-X.sub.(2-5)-P-Y motifs. The polypeptide targets the agent into the cell nucleus.

1. Analysis of Genomic Sequence Motifs for Deciphering Transcription Factor Binding and Transcriptional Regulation in Eukaryotic Cells

PubMed Central

Boeva, Valentina

2016-01-01

Eukaryotic genomes contain a variety of structured patterns: repetitive elements, binding sites of DNA and RNA associated proteins, splice sites, and so on. Often, these structured patterns can be formalized as motifs and described using a proper mathematical model such as position weight matrix and IUPAC consensus. Two key tasks are typically carried out for motifs in the context of the analysis of genomic sequences. These are: identification in a set of DNA regions of over-represented motifs from a particular motif database, and de novo discovery of over-represented motifs. Here we describe existing methodology to perform these two tasks for motifs characterizing transcription factor binding. When applied to the output of ChIP-seq and ChIP-exo experiments, or to promoter regions of co-modulated genes, motif analysis techniques allow for the prediction of transcription factor binding events and enable identification of transcriptional regulators and co-regulators. The usefulness of motif analysis is further exemplified in this review by how motif discovery improves peak calling in ChIP-seq and ChIP-exo experiments and, when coupled with information on gene expression, allows insights into physical mechanisms of transcriptional modulation. PMID:26941778

2. A motif extraction algorithm based on hashing and modulo-4 arithmetic.

PubMed

Sheng, Huitao; Mehrotra, Kishan; Mohan, Chilukuri; Raina, Ramesh

2008-01-01

We develop an algorithm to identify cis-elements in promoter regions of coregulated genes. This algorithm searches for subsequences of desired length whose frequency of occurrence is relatively high, while accounting for slightly perturbed variants using hash table and modulo arithmetic. Motifs are evaluated using profile matrices and higher-order Markov background model. Simulation results show that our algorithm discovers more motifs present in the test sequences, when compared with two well-known motif-discovery tools (MDScan and AlignACE). The algorithm produces very promising results on real data set; the output of the algorithm contained many known motifs. PMID:20058489

3. Comparative genomic analysis of upstream miRNA regulatory motifs in Caenorhabditis.

PubMed

Jovelin, Richard; Krizus, Aldis; Taghizada, Bakhtiyar; Gray, Jeremy C; Phillips, Patrick C; Claycomb, Julie M; Cutter, Asher D

2016-07-01

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) comprise a class of short noncoding RNA molecules that play diverse developmental and physiological roles by controlling mRNA abundance and protein output of the vast majority of transcripts. Despite the importance of miRNAs in regulating gene function, we still lack a complete understanding of how miRNAs themselves are transcriptionally regulated. To fill this gap, we predicted regulatory sequences by searching for abundant short motifs located upstream of miRNAs in eight species of Caenorhabditis nematodes. We identified three conserved motifs across the Caenorhabditis phylogeny that show clear signatures of purifying selection from comparative genomics, patterns of nucleotide changes in motifs of orthologous miRNAs, and correlation between motif incidence and miRNA expression. We then validated our predictions with transgenic green fluorescent protein reporters and site-directed mutagenesis for a subset of motifs located in an enhancer region upstream of let-7 We demonstrate that a CT-dinucleotide motif is sufficient for proper expression of GFP in the seam cells of adult C. elegans, and that two other motifs play incremental roles in combination with the CT-rich motif. Thus, functional tests of sequence motifs identified through analysis of molecular evolutionary signatures provide a powerful path for efficiently characterizing the transcriptional regulation of miRNA genes. PMID:27140965

4. Analysis of Genomic Sequence Motifs for Deciphering Transcription Factor Binding and Transcriptional Regulation in Eukaryotic Cells.

PubMed

Boeva, Valentina

2016-01-01

Eukaryotic genomes contain a variety of structured patterns: repetitive elements, binding sites of DNA and RNA associated proteins, splice sites, and so on. Often, these structured patterns can be formalized as motifs and described using a proper mathematical model such as position weight matrix and IUPAC consensus. Two key tasks are typically carried out for motifs in the context of the analysis of genomic sequences. These are: identification in a set of DNA regions of over-represented motifs from a particular motif database, and de novo discovery of over-represented motifs. Here we describe existing methodology to perform these two tasks for motifs characterizing transcription factor binding. When applied to the output of ChIP-seq and ChIP-exo experiments, or to promoter regions of co-modulated genes, motif analysis techniques allow for the prediction of transcription factor binding events and enable identification of transcriptional regulators and co-regulators. The usefulness of motif analysis is further exemplified in this review by how motif discovery improves peak calling in ChIP-seq and ChIP-exo experiments and, when coupled with information on gene expression, allows insights into physical mechanisms of transcriptional modulation.

5. WordSpy: identifying transcription factor binding motifs by building a dictionary and learning a grammar

PubMed Central

Wang, Guandong; Yu, Taotao; Zhang, Weixiong

2005-01-01

Transcription factor (TF) binding sites or motifs (TFBMs) are functional cis-regulatory DNA sequences that play an essential role in gene transcriptional regulation. Although many experimental and computational methods have been developed, finding TFBMs remains a challenging problem. We propose and develop a novel dictionary based motif finding algorithm, which we call WordSpy. One significant feature of WordSpy is the combination of a word counting method and a statistical model which consists of a dictionary of motifs and a grammar specifying their usage. The algorithm is suitable for genome-wide motif finding; it is capable of discovering hundreds of motifs from a large set of promoters in a single run. We further enhance WordSpy by applying gene expression information to separate true TFBMs from spurious ones, and by incorporating negative sequences to identify discriminative motifs. In addition, we also use randomly selected promoters from the genome to evaluate the significance of the discovered motifs. The output from WordSpy consists of an ordered list of putative motifs and a set of regulatory sequences with motif binding sites highlighted. The web server of WordSpy is available at . PMID:15980501

6. RNAMotifScanX: a graph alignment approach for RNA structural motif identification.

PubMed

Zhong, Cuncong; Zhang, Shaojie

2015-03-01

RNA structural motifs are recurrent three-dimensional (3D) components found in the RNA architecture. These RNA structural motifs play important structural or functional roles and usually exhibit highly conserved 3D geometries and base-interaction patterns. Analysis of the RNA 3D structures and elucidation of their molecular functions heavily rely on efficient and accurate identification of these motifs. However, efficient RNA structural motif search tools are lacking due to the high complexity of these motifs. In this work, we present RNAMotifScanX, a motif search tool based on a base-interaction graph alignment algorithm. This novel algorithm enables automatic identification of both partially and fully matched motif instances. RNAMotifScanX considers noncanonical base-pairing interactions, base-stacking interactions, and sequence conservation of the motifs, which leads to significantly improved sensitivity and specificity as compared with other state-of-the-art search tools. RNAMotifScanX also adopts a carefully designed branch-and-bound technique, which enables ultra-fast search of large kink-turn motifs against a 23S rRNA. The software package RNAMotifScanX is implemented using GNU C++, and is freely available from http://genome.ucf.edu/RNAMotifScanX.

7. A motif extraction algorithm based on hashing and modulo-4 arithmetic.

PubMed

Sheng, Huitao; Mehrotra, Kishan; Mohan, Chilukuri; Raina, Ramesh

2008-01-01

We develop an algorithm to identify cis-elements in promoter regions of coregulated genes. This algorithm searches for subsequences of desired length whose frequency of occurrence is relatively high, while accounting for slightly perturbed variants using hash table and modulo arithmetic. Motifs are evaluated using profile matrices and higher-order Markov background model. Simulation results show that our algorithm discovers more motifs present in the test sequences, when compared with two well-known motif-discovery tools (MDScan and AlignACE). The algorithm produces very promising results on real data set; the output of the algorithm contained many known motifs.

8. A general approach for discriminative de novo motif discovery from high-throughput data

PubMed Central

Grau, Jan; Posch, Stefan; Grosse, Ivo; Keilwagen, Jens

2013-01-01

De novo motif discovery has been an important challenge of bioinformatics for the past two decades. Since the emergence of high-throughput techniques like ChIP-seq, ChIP-exo and protein-binding microarrays (PBMs), the focus of de novo motif discovery has shifted to runtime and accuracy on large data sets. For this purpose, specialized algorithms have been designed for discovering motifs in ChIP-seq or PBM data. However, none of the existing approaches work perfectly for all three high-throughput techniques. In this article, we propose Dimont, a general approach for fast and accurate de novo motif discovery from high-throughput data. We demonstrate that Dimont yields a higher number of correct motifs from ChIP-seq data than any of the specialized approaches and achieves a higher accuracy for predicting PBM intensities from probe sequence than any of the approaches specifically designed for that purpose. Dimont also reports the expected motifs for several ChIP-exo data sets. Investigating differences between in vitro and in vivo binding, we find that for most transcription factors, the motifs discovered by Dimont are in good accordance between techniques, but we also find notable exceptions. We also observe that modeling intra-motif dependencies may increase accuracy, which indicates that more complex motif models are a worthwhile field of research. PMID:24057214

9. Appearance of the bulk motif in Al clusters

Sun, Jiao; Lu, Wen-Cai; Li, Ze-Sheng; Wang, C. Z.; Ho, K. M.

2008-07-01

We have performed an unbiased search for the lowest-energy structures of medium-sized aluminum clusters Aln (n=19-26) using a genetic algorithm (GA) coupled with a tight-binding interatomic potential. Structural candidates obtained from our GA search were further optimized using density functional theory. It is found that the double icosahedron is not the most stable structure for Al19 but serves as the core for Al20 and Al21. The lowest-energy structures of Aln are found to undergo a transition to an aluminum bulk motif above Al23. In particular, the lowest-energy structure of Al26 is almost a fragment of the bulk face-centered-cubic crystal except for the stacking fault at the bottom layer. Anion clusters were also studied.

10. Normalized Texture Motifs and Their Application to Statistical Object Modeling

SciTech Connect

Newsam, S D

2004-03-09

A fundamental challenge in applying texture features to statistical object modeling is recognizing differently oriented spatial patterns. Rows of moored boats in remote sensed images of harbors should be consistently labeled regardless of the orientation of the harbors, or of the boats within the harbors. This is not straightforward to do, however, when using anisotropic texture features to characterize the spatial patterns. We here propose an elegant solution, termed normalized texture motifs, that uses a parametric statistical model to characterize the patterns regardless of their orientation. The models are learned in an unsupervised fashion from arbitrarily orientated training samples. The proposed approach is general enough to be used with a large category of orientation-selective texture features.

11. Motif-Driven Design of Protein-Protein Interfaces.

PubMed

Silva, Daniel-Adriano; Correia, Bruno E; Procko, Erik

2016-01-01

Protein-protein interfaces regulate many critical processes for cellular function. The ability to accurately control and regulate these molecular interactions is of major interest for biomedical and synthetic biology applications, as well as to address fundamental biological questions. In recent years, computational protein design has emerged as a tool for designing novel protein-protein interactions with functional relevance. Although attractive, these computational tools carry a steep learning curve. In order to make some of these methods more accessible, we present detailed descriptions and examples of ROSETTA computational protocols for the design of functional protein binders using seeded protein interface design. In these protocols, a motif of known structure that interacts with the target site is grafted into a scaffold protein, followed by design of the surrounding interaction surface. PMID:27094298

12. Study on online community user motif using web usage mining

Alphy, Meera; Sharma, Ajay

2016-04-01

The Web usage mining is the application of data mining, which is used to extract useful information from the online community. The World Wide Web contains at least 4.73 billion pages according to Indexed Web and it contains at least 228.52 million pages according Dutch Indexed web on 6th august 2015, Thursday. It’s difficult to get needed data from these billions of web pages in World Wide Web. Here is the importance of web usage mining. Personalizing the search engine helps the web user to identify the most used data in an easy way. It reduces the time consumption; automatic site search and automatic restore the useful sites. This study represents the old techniques to latest techniques used in pattern discovery and analysis in web usage mining from 1996 to 2015. Analyzing user motif helps in the improvement of business, e-commerce, personalisation and improvement of websites.

13. Bacteria-mimicking nanoparticle surface functionalization with targeting motifs

Lai, Mei-Hsiu; Clay, Nicholas E.; Kim, Dong Hyun; Kong, Hyunjoon

2015-04-01

In recent years, surface modification of nanocarriers with targeting motifs has been explored to modulate delivery of various diagnostic, sensing and therapeutic molecular cargo to desired sites of interest in in vitro bioengineering platforms and in vivo pathologic tissue. However, most surface functionalization approaches are often plagued by complex chemical modifications and effortful purifications. To resolve such challenges, this study demonstrates a unique method to immobilize antibodies that can act as targeting motifs on the surfaces of nanocarriers, inspired by a process that bacteria use for immobilization of the host's antibodies. We hypothesized that alkylated Staphylococcus aureus protein A (SpA) would self-assemble with micelles and subsequently induce stable coupling of antibodies to the micelles. We examined this hypothesis by using poly(2-hydroxyethyl-co-octadecyl aspartamide) (PHEA-g-C18) as a model polymer to form micelles. The self-assembly between the micelles and alkylated SpA became more thermodynamically favorable by increasing the degree of substitution of octadecyl chains to PHEA-g-C18, due to a positive entropy change. Lastly, the mixing of SpA-PA-coupled micelles with antibodies resulted in the coating of micelles with antibodies, as confirmed with a fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) assay. The micelles coated with antibodies to VCAM-1 or integrin αv displayed a higher binding affinity to substrates coated with VCAM-1 and integrin αvβ3, respectively, than other controls, as evaluated with surface plasmon resonance (SPR) spectroscopy and a circulation-simulating flow chamber. We envisage that this bacteria-inspired protein immobilization approach will be useful to improve the quality of targeted delivery of nanoparticles, and can be extended to modify the surface of a wide array of nanocarriers.In recent years, surface modification of nanocarriers with targeting motifs has been explored to modulate delivery of various

14. Sequential dynamics in the motif of excitatory coupled elements

Korotkov, Alexander G.; Kazakov, Alexey O.; Osipov, Grigory V.

2015-11-01

In this article a new model of motif (small ensemble) of neuron-like elements is proposed. It is built with the use of the generalized Lotka-Volterra model with excitatory couplings. The main motivation for this work comes from the problems of neuroscience where excitatory couplings are proved to be the predominant type of interaction between neurons of the brain. In this paper it is shown that there are two modes depending on the type of coupling between the elements: the mode with a stable heteroclinic cycle and the mode with a stable limit cycle. Our second goal is to examine the chaotic dynamics of the generalized three-dimensional Lotka-Volterra model.

15. RNA Sociology: Group Behavioral Motifs of RNA Consortia

PubMed Central

Witzany, Guenther

2014-01-01

RNA sociology investigates the behavioral motifs of RNA consortia from the social science perspective. Besides the self-folding of RNAs into single stem loop structures, group building of such stem loops results in a variety of essential agents that are highly active in regulatory processes in cellular and non-cellular life. RNA stem loop self-folding and group building do not depend solely on sequence syntax; more important are their contextual (functional) needs. Also, evolutionary processes seem to occur through RNA stem loop consortia that may act as a complement. This means the whole entity functions only if all participating parts are coordinated, although the complementary building parts originally evolved for different functions. If complementary groups, such as rRNAs and tRNAs, are placed together in selective pressure contexts, new evolutionary features may emerge. Evolution initiated by competent agents in natural genome editing clearly contrasts with statistical error replication narratives. PMID:25426799

16. H-2Dd exploits a four residue peptide binding motif

PubMed Central

1993-01-01

We have characterized the amino acid sequences of over 20 endogenous peptides bound by a soluble analog of H-2Dd, H-2Dds. Synthetic analogs corresponding to self, viral, tumor, or motif peptides were then tested for their ability to bind to H-2Dd by serologic epitope induction assays using both purified soluble protein and cell surface H-2Dd. The dominant primary sequence motif included glycine at position 2, proline at position 3, and a hydrophobic COOH terminus: leucine, isoleucine, or phenylalanine at position 9 or 10. Ancillary support for high affinity binding was contributed by a positively charged residue at position 5. Three-dimensional computer models of H-2Dds/peptide complexes, based on the crystallographic structure of the human HLA-B27/peptide complex, showed that the basic residue at position 5 was in position to form a salt bridge with aspartic acid at position 156, a polymorphic residue of the H-2Dd heavy (H) chain. Analysis of 28 such models, including 17 based on nonamer self-peptides, revealed considerable variation in the structure of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) surrounding peptide residue 1, depending on the size and charge of the side chain. Interactions between the side chains of peptide residues 5 and 7, and 6 and 8 commonly occurred. Those peptide positions with limited sequence variability and least solvent accessibility may satisfy structural requirements for high affinity binding of the peptide to the MHC class I H chain, whereas the highly variable positions of the peptide (such as positions 4, 6, and 8) may contribute more to the T cell epitopes. PMID:8245770

17. A double inclusion model for multiphase piezoelectric composites

Lin, Yirong; Sodano, Henry A.

2010-03-01

A novel active structural fiber (ASF; Lin and Sodano 2008 Compos. Sci. Technol. 68 1911-8) was developed that can be embedded in a composite material in order to perform sensing and actuation, in addition to providing load bearing functionality. In order to fully understand the electroelastic properties of the material, this paper will introduce a three-dimensional micromechanics model for estimating the effective electroelastic properties of the multifunctional composites with different design parameters. The three-dimensional model is formulated by extending the double inclusion model to multiphase composites with piezoelectric constituents. The double inclusion model has been chosen for the ASF studied here because it is designed to model composites reinforced by inclusions with multilayer coatings. The accuracy of our extended double inclusion model will be evaluated through a three-dimensional finite element analysis of a representative volume element of the ASF composite. The results will demonstrate that the micromechanics model developed here can very accurately predict the electroelastic properties of the multifunctional composites.

18. Stabilization of i-motif structures by 2'-β-fluorination of DNA.

PubMed

Assi, Hala Abou; Harkness, Robert W; Martin-Pintado, Nerea; Wilds, Christopher J; Campos-Olivas, Ramón; Mittermaier, Anthony K; González, Carlos; Damha, Masad J

2016-06-20

i-Motifs are four-stranded DNA structures consisting of two parallel DNA duplexes held together by hemi-protonated and intercalated cytosine base pairs (C:CH(+)). They have attracted considerable research interest for their potential role in gene regulation and their use as pH responsive switches and building blocks in macromolecular assemblies. At neutral and basic pH values, the cytosine bases deprotonate and the structure unfolds into single strands. To avoid this limitation and expand the range of environmental conditions supporting i-motif folding, we replaced the sugar in DNA by 2-deoxy-2-fluoroarabinose. We demonstrate that such a modification significantly stabilizes i-motif formation over a wide pH range, including pH 7. Nuclear magnetic resonance experiments reveal that 2-deoxy-2-fluoroarabinose adopts a C2'-endo conformation, instead of the C3'-endo conformation usually found in unmodified i-motifs. Nevertheless, this substitution does not alter the overall i-motif structure. This conformational change, together with the changes in charge distribution in the sugar caused by the electronegative fluorine atoms, leads to a number of favorable sequential and inter-strand electrostatic interactions. The availability of folded i-motifs at neutral pH will aid investigations into the biological function of i-motifs in vitro, and will expand i-motif applications in nanotechnology. PMID:27166371

19. Pleiotropic functions of a conserved insect-specific Hox peptide motif.

PubMed

Hittinger, Chris Todd; Stern, David L; Carroll, Sean B

2005-12-01

The proteins that regulate developmental processes in animals have generally been well conserved during evolution. A few cases are known where protein activities have functionally evolved. These rare examples raise the issue of how highly conserved regulatory proteins with many roles evolve new functions while maintaining old functions. We have investigated this by analyzing the function of the ;QA' peptide motif of the Hox protein Ultrabithorax (Ubx), a motif that has been conserved throughout insect evolution since its establishment early in the lineage. We precisely deleted the QA motif at the endogenous locus via allelic replacement in Drosophila melanogaster. Although the QA motif was originally characterized as involved in the repression of limb formation, we have found that it is highly pleiotropic. Curiously, deleting the QA motif had strong effects in some tissues while barely affecting others, suggesting that QA function is preferentially required for a subset of Ubx target genes. QA deletion homozygotes had a normal complement of limbs, but, at reduced doses of Ubx and the abdominal-A (abd-A) Hox gene, ectopic limb primordia and adult abdominal limbs formed when the QA motif was absent. These results show that redundancy and the additive contributions of activity-regulating peptide motifs play important roles in moderating the phenotypic consequences of Hox protein evolution, and that pleiotropic peptide motifs that contribute quantitatively to several functions are subject to intense purifying selection.

20. Exploring comprehensive within-motif dependence of transcription factor binding in Escherichia coli

PubMed Central

Yang, Chi; Chang, Chuan-Hsiung

2015-01-01

Modeling the binding of transcription factors helps to decipher the control logic behind transcriptional regulatory networks. Position weight matrix is commonly used to describe a binding motif but assumes statistical independence between positions. Although current approaches take within-motif dependence into account for better predictive performance, these models usually rely on prior knowledge and incorporate simple positional dependence to describe binding motifs. The inability to take complex within-motif dependence into account may result in an incomplete representation of binding motifs. In this work, we applied association rule mining techniques and constructed models to explore within-motif dependence for transcription factors in Escherichia coli. Our models can reflect transcription factor-DNA recognition where the explored dependence correlates with the binding specificity. We also propose a graphical representation of the explored within-motif dependence to illustrate the final binding configurations. Understanding the binding configurations also enables us to fine-tune or design transcription factor binding sites, and we attempt to present the configurations through exploring within-motif dependence. PMID:26592556

1. Physical-chemical property based sequence motifs and methods regarding same

DOEpatents

Braun, Werner; Mathura, Venkatarajan S.; Schein, Catherine H.

2008-09-09

A data analysis system, program, and/or method, e.g., a data mining/data exploration method, using physical-chemical property motifs. For example, a sequence database may be searched for identifying segments thereof having physical-chemical properties similar to the physical-chemical property motifs.

2. A Fast Cluster Motif Finding Algorithm for ChIP-Seq Data Sets

PubMed Central

Zhang, Yipu; Wang, Ping

2015-01-01

New high-throughput technique ChIP-seq, coupling chromatin immunoprecipitation experiment with high-throughput sequencing technologies, has extended the identification of binding locations of a transcription factor to the genome-wide regions. However, the most existing motif discovery algorithms are time-consuming and limited to identify binding motifs in ChIP-seq data which normally has the significant characteristics of large scale data. In order to improve the efficiency, we propose a fast cluster motif finding algorithm, named as FCmotif, to identify the (l,  d) motifs in large scale ChIP-seq data set. It is inspired by the emerging substrings mining strategy to find the enriched substrings and then searching the neighborhood instances to construct PWM and cluster motifs in different length. FCmotif is not following the OOPS model constraint and can find long motifs. The effectiveness of proposed algorithm has been proved by experiments on the ChIP-seq data sets from mouse ES cells. The whole detection of the real binding motifs and processing of the full size data of several megabytes finished in a few minutes. The experimental results show that FCmotif has advantageous to deal with the (l,  d) motif finding in the ChIP-seq data; meanwhile it also demonstrates better performance than other current widely-used algorithms such as MEME, Weeder, ChIPMunk, and DREME. PMID:26236718

3. Exploring comprehensive within-motif dependence of transcription factor binding in Escherichia coli.

PubMed

Yang, Chi; Chang, Chuan-Hsiung

2015-11-23

Modeling the binding of transcription factors helps to decipher the control logic behind transcriptional regulatory networks. Position weight matrix is commonly used to describe a binding motif but assumes statistical independence between positions. Although current approaches take within-motif dependence into account for better predictive performance, these models usually rely on prior knowledge and incorporate simple positional dependence to describe binding motifs. The inability to take complex within-motif dependence into account may result in an incomplete representation of binding motifs. In this work, we applied association rule mining techniques and constructed models to explore within-motif dependence for transcription factors in Escherichia coli. Our models can reflect transcription factor-DNA recognition where the explored dependence correlates with the binding specificity. We also propose a graphical representation of the explored within-motif dependence to illustrate the final binding configurations. Understanding the binding configurations also enables us to fine-tune or design transcription factor binding sites, and we attempt to present the configurations through exploring within-motif dependence.

4. Genome adaptations of a tripartite motif protein for retroviral defense in cattle and sheep

Technology Transfer Automated Retrieval System (TEKTRAN)

Tripartite motif (TRIM) genes encode proteins composed of RING, B-box, and coiled coil motif domains. Primate TRIM5' has been shown to be a primary determinant of retroviral host cell range restriction in primates. TRIM5 restriction was originally thought to be a primate-specific defense mechanism...

5. A Fast Cluster Motif Finding Algorithm for ChIP-Seq Data Sets.

PubMed

Zhang, Yipu; Wang, Ping

2015-01-01

New high-throughput technique ChIP-seq, coupling chromatin immunoprecipitation experiment with high-throughput sequencing technologies, has extended the identification of binding locations of a transcription factor to the genome-wide regions. However, the most existing motif discovery algorithms are time-consuming and limited to identify binding motifs in ChIP-seq data which normally has the significant characteristics of large scale data. In order to improve the efficiency, we propose a fast cluster motif finding algorithm, named as FCmotif, to identify the (l,  d) motifs in large scale ChIP-seq data set. It is inspired by the emerging substrings mining strategy to find the enriched substrings and then searching the neighborhood instances to construct PWM and cluster motifs in different length. FCmotif is not following the OOPS model constraint and can find long motifs. The effectiveness of proposed algorithm has been proved by experiments on the ChIP-seq data sets from mouse ES cells. The whole detection of the real binding motifs and processing of the full size data of several megabytes finished in a few minutes. The experimental results show that FCmotif has advantageous to deal with the (l,  d) motif finding in the ChIP-seq data; meanwhile it also demonstrates better performance than other current widely-used algorithms such as MEME, Weeder, ChIPMunk, and DREME. PMID:26236718

6. An Efficient Exact Algorithm for the Motif Stem Search Problem over Large Alphabets.

PubMed

Yu, Qiang; Huo, Hongwei; Vitter, Jeffrey Scott; Huan, Jun; Nekrich, Yakov

2015-01-01

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in planted (l, d) motif search (PMS) with applications to discovering significant segments in biological sequences. However, there has been little discussion about PMS over large alphabets. This paper focuses on motif stem search (MSS), which is recently introduced to search motifs on large-alphabet inputs. A motif stem is an l-length string with some wildcards. The goal of the MSS problem is to find a set of stems that represents a superset of all (l , d) motifs present in the input sequences, and the superset is expected to be as small as possible. The three main contributions of this paper are as follows: (1) We build motif stem representation more precisely by using regular expressions. (2) We give a method for generating all possible motif stems without redundant wildcards. (3) We propose an efficient exact algorithm, called StemFinder, for solving the MSS problem. Compared with the previous MSS algorithms, StemFinder runs much faster and reports fewer stems which represent a smaller superset of all (l, d) motifs. StemFinder is freely available at http://sites.google.com/site/feqond/stemfinder. PMID:26357225

7. An Efficient Algorithm for Discovering Motifs in Large DNA Data Sets.

PubMed

Yu, Qiang; Huo, Hongwei; Chen, Xiaoyang; Guo, Haitao; Vitter, Jeffrey Scott; Huan, Jun

2015-07-01

The planted (l,d) motif discovery has been successfully used to locate transcription factor binding sites in dozens of promoter sequences over the past decade. However, there has not been enough work done in identifying (l,d) motifs in the next-generation sequencing (ChIP-seq) data sets, which contain thousands of input sequences and thereby bring new challenge to make a good identification in reasonable time. To cater this need, we propose a new planted (l,d) motif discovery algorithm named MCES, which identifies motifs by mining and combining emerging substrings. Specially, to handle larger data sets, we design a MapReduce-based strategy to mine emerging substrings distributedly. Experimental results on the simulated data show that i) MCES is able to identify (l,d) motifs efficiently and effectively in thousands to millions of input sequences, and runs faster than the state-of-the-art (l,d) motif discovery algorithms, such as F-motif and TraverStringsR; ii) MCES is able to identify motifs without known lengths, and has a better identification accuracy than the competing algorithm CisFinder. Also, the validity of MCES is tested on real data sets. MCES is freely available at http://sites.google.com/site/feqond/mces.

8. JAR3D Webserver: Scoring and aligning RNA loop sequences to known 3D motifs

PubMed Central

Roll, James; Zirbel, Craig L.; Sweeney, Blake; Petrov, Anton I.; Leontis, Neocles

2016-01-01

Many non-coding RNAs have been identified and may function by forming 2D and 3D structures. RNA hairpin and internal loops are often represented as unstructured on secondary structure diagrams, but RNA 3D structures show that most such loops are structured by non-Watson–Crick basepairs and base stacking. Moreover, different RNA sequences can form the same RNA 3D motif. JAR3D finds possible 3D geometries for hairpin and internal loops by matching loop sequences to motif groups from the RNA 3D Motif Atlas, by exact sequence match when possible, and by probabilistic scoring and edit distance for novel sequences. The scoring gauges the ability of the sequences to form the same pattern of interactions observed in 3D structures of the motif. The JAR3D webserver at http://rna.bgsu.edu/jar3d/ takes one or many sequences of a single loop as input, or else one or many sequences of longer RNAs with multiple loops. Each sequence is scored against all current motif groups. The output shows the ten best-matching motif groups. Users can align input sequences to each of the motif groups found by JAR3D. JAR3D will be updated with every release of the RNA 3D Motif Atlas, and so its performance is expected to improve over time. PMID:27235417

9. The PXDLS linear motif regulates circadian rhythmicity through protein–protein interactions

PubMed Central

Shalev, Moran; Aviram, Rona; Adamovich, Yaarit; Kraut-Cohen, Judith; Shamia, Tal; Ben-Dor, Shifra; Golik, Marina; Asher, Gad

2014-01-01

The circadian core clock circuitry relies on interlocked transcription-translation feedback loops that largely count on multiple protein interactions. The molecular mechanisms implicated in the assembly of these protein complexes are relatively unknown. Our bioinformatics analysis of short linear motifs, implicated in protein interactions, reveals an enrichment of the Pro-X-Asp-Leu-Ser (PXDLS) motif within circadian transcripts. We show that the PXDLS motif can bind to BMAL1/CLOCK and disrupt circadian oscillations in a cell-autonomous manner. Remarkably, the motif is evolutionary conserved in the core clock protein REV-ERBα, and additional proteins implicated in the clock's function (NRIP1, CBP). In this conjuncture, we uncover a novel cross talk between the two principal core clock feedback loops and show that BMAL/CLOCK and REV-ERBα interact and that the PXDLS motif of REV-ERBα participates in their binding. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the PXDLS motifs of NRIP1 and CBP are involved in circadian rhythmicity. Our findings suggest that the PXDLS motif plays an important role in circadian rhythmicity through regulation of protein interactions within the clock circuitry and that short linear motifs can be employed to modulate circadian oscillations. PMID:25260595

10. Wayward Warriors: The Viking Motif in Swedish and English Children's Literature

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sundmark, Björn

2014-01-01

In this article the Viking motif in children's literature is explored--from its roots in (adult) nationalist and antiquarian discourse, over pedagogical and historical texts for children, to the eventual diversification (or dissolution) of the motif into different genres and forms. The focus is on Swedish Viking narratives, but points of…

11. Reversible DNA i-motif to hairpin switching induced by copper(II) cations.

PubMed

Day, Henry Albert; Wright, Elisé Patricia; MacDonald, Colin John; Gates, Andrew James; Waller, Zoë Ann Ella

2015-09-25

i-Motif DNA structures have previously been utilised for many different nanotechnological applications, but all have used changes in pH to fold the DNA. Herein we describe how copper(II) cations can alter the conformation of i-motif DNA into an alternative hairpin structure which is reversible by chelation with EDTA.

12. Stabilization of i-motif structures by 2′-β-fluorination of DNA

PubMed Central

Assi, Hala Abou; Harkness, Robert W.; Martin-Pintado, Nerea; Wilds, Christopher J.; Campos-Olivas, Ramón; Mittermaier, Anthony K.; González, Carlos; Damha, Masad J.

2016-01-01

i-Motifs are four-stranded DNA structures consisting of two parallel DNA duplexes held together by hemi-protonated and intercalated cytosine base pairs (C:CH+). They have attracted considerable research interest for their potential role in gene regulation and their use as pH responsive switches and building blocks in macromolecular assemblies. At neutral and basic pH values, the cytosine bases deprotonate and the structure unfolds into single strands. To avoid this limitation and expand the range of environmental conditions supporting i-motif folding, we replaced the sugar in DNA by 2-deoxy-2-fluoroarabinose. We demonstrate that such a modification significantly stabilizes i-motif formation over a wide pH range, including pH 7. Nuclear magnetic resonance experiments reveal that 2-deoxy-2-fluoroarabinose adopts a C2′-endo conformation, instead of the C3′-endo conformation usually found in unmodified i-motifs. Nevertheless, this substitution does not alter the overall i-motif structure. This conformational change, together with the changes in charge distribution in the sugar caused by the electronegative fluorine atoms, leads to a number of favorable sequential and inter-strand electrostatic interactions. The availability of folded i-motifs at neutral pH will aid investigations into the biological function of i-motifs in vitro, and will expand i-motif applications in nanotechnology. PMID:27166371

13. The EDLL motif: a potent plant transcriptional activation domain from AP2/ERF transcription factors.

PubMed

Tiwari, Shiv B; Belachew, Alemu; Ma, Siu Fong; Young, Melinda; Ade, Jules; Shen, Yu; Marion, Colleen M; Holtan, Hans E; Bailey, Adina; Stone, Jeffrey K; Edwards, Leslie; Wallace, Andreah D; Canales, Roger D; Adam, Luc; Ratcliffe, Oliver J; Repetti, Peter P

2012-06-01

In plants, the ERF/EREBP family of transcriptional regulators plays a key role in adaptation to various biotic and abiotic stresses. These proteins contain a conserved AP2 DNA-binding domain and several uncharacterized motifs. Here, we describe a short motif, termed 'EDLL', that is present in AtERF98/TDR1 and other clade members from the same AP2 sub-family. We show that the EDLL motif, which has a unique arrangement of acidic amino acids and hydrophobic leucines, functions as a strong activation domain. The motif is transferable to other proteins, and is active at both proximal and distal positions of target promoters. As such, the EDLL motif is able to partly overcome the repression conferred by the AtHB2 transcription factor, which contains an ERF-associated amphiphilic repression (EAR) motif. We further examined the activation potential of EDLL by analysis of the regulation of flowering time by NF-Y (nuclear factor Y) proteins. Genetic evidence indicates that NF-Y protein complexes potentiate the action of CONSTANS in regulation of flowering in Arabidopsis; we show that the transcriptional activation function of CONSTANS can be substituted by direct fusion of the EDLL activation motif to NF-YB subunits. The EDLL motif represents a potent plant activation domain that can be used as a tool to confer transcriptional activation potential to heterologous DNA-binding proteins.

14. Exploring comprehensive within-motif dependence of transcription factor binding in Escherichia coli.

PubMed

Yang, Chi; Chang, Chuan-Hsiung

2015-01-01

Modeling the binding of transcription factors helps to decipher the control logic behind transcriptional regulatory networks. Position weight matrix is commonly used to describe a binding motif but assumes statistical independence between positions. Although current approaches take within-motif dependence into account for better predictive performance, these models usually rely on prior knowledge and incorporate simple positional dependence to describe binding motifs. The inability to take complex within-motif dependence into account may result in an incomplete representation of binding motifs. In this work, we applied association rule mining techniques and constructed models to explore within-motif dependence for transcription factors in Escherichia coli. Our models can reflect transcription factor-DNA recognition where the explored dependence correlates with the binding specificity. We also propose a graphical representation of the explored within-motif dependence to illustrate the final binding configurations. Understanding the binding configurations also enables us to fine-tune or design transcription factor binding sites, and we attempt to present the configurations through exploring within-motif dependence. PMID:26592556

15. Redemptive Rhetoric: The Continuity Motif in the Rhetoric of Right to Life.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Solomon, Martha

1980-01-01

Traces the use of the "continuity" motif in the Right to Life movement's rhetoric and its influence on the depiction of the abortion controversy. Analyzes how the motif functions rhetorically to aid the movement in defining its activities and involvement. (PD)

16. Selection for the G4 DNA motif at the 5' end of human genes.

PubMed

Eddy, Johanna; Maizels, Nancy

2009-04-01

Formation of G4 DNA may occur in the course of replication and transcription, and contribute to genomic instability. We have quantitated abundance of G4 motifs and potential for G4 DNA formation of the nontemplate strand of 5' exons and introns of transcripts of human genes. We find that, for all human genes, G4 motifs are enriched in 5' regions of transcripts relative to downstream regions; and in 5' regulatory regions relative to coding regions. Notably, although tumor suppressor genes are depleted and proto-oncogenes enriched in G4 motifs, abundance of G4 motifs in the 5' regions of transcripts of genes in these categories does not differ. These results support the hypothesis that G4 motifs are under selection in the human genome. They further show that for tumor suppressor genes and proto-oncogenes, independent selection determines potential for G4 DNA formation of 5' regulatory regions of transcripts and downstream coding regions.

17. A methodology for motif discovery employing iterated cluster re-assignment.

PubMed

Abul, Osman; Drabløs, Finn; Sandve, Geir Kjetil

2006-01-01

Motif discovery is a crucial part of regulatory network identification, and therefore widely studied in the literature. Motif discovery programs search for statistically significant, well-conserved and over-represented patterns in given promoter sequences. When gene expression data is available, there are mainly three paradigms for motif discovery; cluster-first, regression, and joint probabilistic. The success of motif discovery depends highly on the homogeneity of input sequences, regardless of paradigm employed. In this work, we propose a methodology for getting homogeneous subsets from input sequences for increased motif discovery performance. It is a unification of cluster-first and regression paradigms based on iterative cluster re-assignment. The experimental results show the effectiveness of the methodology.

18. Identification and preliminary characterization of a protein motif related to the zinc finger.

PubMed Central

Lovering, R; Hanson, I M; Borden, K L; Martin, S; O'Reilly, N J; Evan, G I; Rahman, D; Pappin, D J; Trowsdale, J; Freemont, P S

1993-01-01

We have identified a protein motif, related to the zinc finger, which defines a newly discovered family of proteins. The motif was found in the sequence of the human RING1 gene, which is proximal to the major histocompatibility complex region on chromosome six. We propose naming this motif the "RING finger" and it is found in 27 proteins, all of which have putative DNA binding functions. We have synthesized a peptide corresponding to the RING1 motif and examined a number of properties, including metal and DNA binding. We provide evidence to support the suggestion that the RING finger motif is the DNA binding domain of this newly defined family of proteins. Images Fig. 1 Fig. 4 PMID:7681583

19. Combinatorial Information Theoretical Measurement of the Semantic Significance of Semantic Graph Motifs

SciTech Connect

Joslyn, Cliff A.; al-Saffar, Sinan; Haglin, David J.; Holder, Larry

2011-06-14

Given an arbitrary semantic graph data set, perhaps one lacking in explicit ontological information, we wish to first identify its significant semantic structures, and then measure the extent of their significance. Casting a semantic graph dataset as an edge-labeled, directed graph, this task can be built on the ability to mine frequent {\\em labeled} subgraphs in edge-labeled, directed graphs. We begin by considering the fundamentals of the enumerative combinatorics of subgraph motif structures in edge-labeled directed graphs. We identify its frequent labeled, directed subgraph motif patterns, and measure the significance of the resulting motifs by the information gain relative to the expected value of the motif based on the empirical frequency distribution of the link types which compose them, assuming indpendence. We illustrate the method on a small test graph, and discuss results obtained for small linear motifs (link type bigrams and trigrams) in a larger graph structure.

20. MOTIFSIM: A web tool for detecting similarity in multiple DNA motif datasets.

PubMed

Tran, Ngoc Tam L; Huang, Chun-Hsi

2015-07-01

Currently, there are a number of motif detection tools available that possess unique functionality. These tools often report different motifs, and therefore use of multiple tools is generally advised since common motifs reported by multiple tools are more likely to be biologically significant. However, results produced by these different tools need to be compared and existing similarity detection tools only allow comparison between two data sets. Here, we describe a motif similarity detection tool (MOTIFSIM) possessing a web-based, user-friendly interface that is capable of detecting similarity from multiple DNA motif data sets concurrently. Results can either be viewed online or downloaded. Users may also download and run MOTIFSIM as a command-line tool in stand-alone mode. The web tool, along with its command-line version, user manuals, and source codes, are freely available at http://biogrid-head.engr.uconn.edu/motifsim/.

1. Materiaux composites supraconducteurs

Kerjouan, Philippe; Boterel, Florence; Lostec, Jean; Bertot, Jean-Paul; Haussonne, Jean-Marie

1991-11-01

The new superconductor materials with a high critical current own a large importance as well in the electronic components or in the electrotechnical devices fields. The deposit of such materials with the thick films technology is to be more and more developped in the years to come. Therefore, we tried to realize such thick films screen printed on alumina, and composed mainly of the YBa2CU3O{7-δ} material. We first realized a composite material glass/YBa2CU3O{7-δ}, by analogy with the classical screen-printed inks where the glass ensures the bonding with the substrate. We thus realized different materials by using some different classes of glass. These materials owned a superconducting transition close to the one of the pure YBa2CU3O{7-δ} material. We made a slurry with the most significant composite materials and binders, and screen-printed them on an alumina substrate preliminary or not coated with a diffusion barrier layer. After firing, we studied the thick films adhesion, the alumina/glass/composite material interfaces, and their superconducting properties. Les nouveaux matériaux supraconducteurs à haute température critique ont potentiellement un rôle important à jouer dans le domaine de l'électronique et de l'électrotechnique. En particulier, le dépôt d'oxydes supraconducteurs sur divers types de substrats est une technologie amenée à se développer. Nous avons donc entrepris une étude dont l'objet est la réalisation de conducteurs sérigraphiés sur alumine et composés essentiellement du matériau YBa2CU3O{7-δ}. Nous avons tout d'abord cherché à réaliser un composite verre/YBa2CU3O{7-δ}, par analogie au principe de réalisation de couches conductrices sérigraphiées, le verre permettant d'obtenir une liaison physico-chimique avec le substrat. Une étude préliminaire a permis de réaliser divers matériaux composites massifs, utilisant différentes familles de verres. Ces matériaux massifs, se présentant sous la forme de barreaux de

2. An improved poly(A) motifs recognition method based on decision level fusion.

PubMed

Zhang, Shanxin; Han, Jiuqiang; Liu, Jun; Zheng, Jiguang; Liu, Ruiling

2015-02-01

Polyadenylation is the process of addition of poly(A) tail to mRNA 3' ends. Identification of motifs controlling polyadenylation plays an essential role in improving genome annotation accuracy and better understanding of the mechanisms governing gene regulation. The bioinformatics methods used for poly(A) motifs recognition have demonstrated that information extracted from sequences surrounding the candidate motifs can differentiate true motifs from the false ones greatly. However, these methods depend on either domain features or string kernels. To date, methods combining information from different sources have not been found yet. Here, we proposed an improved poly(A) motifs recognition method by combing different sources based on decision level fusion. First of all, two novel prediction methods was proposed based on support vector machine (SVM): one method is achieved by using the domain-specific features and principle component analysis (PCA) method to eliminate the redundancy (PCA-SVM); the other method is based on Oligo string kernel (Oligo-SVM). Then we proposed a novel machine-learning method for poly(A) motif prediction by marrying four poly(A) motifs recognition methods, including two state-of-the-art methods (Random Forest (RF) and HMM-SVM), and two novel proposed methods (PCA-SVM and Oligo-SVM). A decision level information fusion method was employed to combine the decision values of different classifiers by applying the DS evidence theory. We evaluated our method on a comprehensive poly(A) dataset that consists of 14,740 samples on 12 variants of poly(A) motifs and 2750 samples containing none of these motifs. Our method has achieved accuracy up to 86.13%. Compared with the four classifiers, our evidence theory based method reduces the average error rate by about 30%, 27%, 26% and 16%, respectively. The experimental results suggest that the proposed method is more effective for poly(A) motif recognition. PMID:25594576

3. An improved poly(A) motifs recognition method based on decision level fusion.

PubMed

Zhang, Shanxin; Han, Jiuqiang; Liu, Jun; Zheng, Jiguang; Liu, Ruiling

2015-02-01

Polyadenylation is the process of addition of poly(A) tail to mRNA 3' ends. Identification of motifs controlling polyadenylation plays an essential role in improving genome annotation accuracy and better understanding of the mechanisms governing gene regulation. The bioinformatics methods used for poly(A) motifs recognition have demonstrated that information extracted from sequences surrounding the candidate motifs can differentiate true motifs from the false ones greatly. However, these methods depend on either domain features or string kernels. To date, methods combining information from different sources have not been found yet. Here, we proposed an improved poly(A) motifs recognition method by combing different sources based on decision level fusion. First of all, two novel prediction methods was proposed based on support vector machine (SVM): one method is achieved by using the domain-specific features and principle component analysis (PCA) method to eliminate the redundancy (PCA-SVM); the other method is based on Oligo string kernel (Oligo-SVM). Then we proposed a novel machine-learning method for poly(A) motif prediction by marrying four poly(A) motifs recognition methods, including two state-of-the-art methods (Random Forest (RF) and HMM-SVM), and two novel proposed methods (PCA-SVM and Oligo-SVM). A decision level information fusion method was employed to combine the decision values of different classifiers by applying the DS evidence theory. We evaluated our method on a comprehensive poly(A) dataset that consists of 14,740 samples on 12 variants of poly(A) motifs and 2750 samples containing none of these motifs. Our method has achieved accuracy up to 86.13%. Compared with the four classifiers, our evidence theory based method reduces the average error rate by about 30%, 27%, 26% and 16%, respectively. The experimental results suggest that the proposed method is more effective for poly(A) motif recognition.

4. Isolation, cloning and characterisation of motifs containing (GA/TC)n repeats isolated from vetch, Vicia bithynica.

PubMed

Sakowicz, Tomasz; Bowater, Richard; Parniewski, Paweł

2004-01-01

Microsatellites are widely distributed in plant genomes and comprise unstable regions that undergo mutational changes at rates much greater than that observed for non-repetitive sequences. They demonstrate intrinsic genetic instability, manifested as frequent length changes due to insertions or deletions of repeat units. Detailed analysis of 1600 clones containing genomic sequences of Vicia bithynica revealed the presence of microsatellite repeats in its genome. Based on the screening of a partial DNA library of plasmids, 13 clones harbouring (GA/TC)n tracts of various lengths of repeated motif were identified for further analysis of their internal sequence organization. Sequence analyses revealed the precise length, number of repeats, interruptions within tracts, as well as sequence composition flanking the repeat motifs. Representative plasmids containing different lengths of (GA/TC)n embedded in their original flanking sequence were used to investigate the genetic stability of the repeats. In the study presented herein, we employed a well characterised and tractable bacterial genetic system. Recultivations of Escherichia coli harbouring plasmids containing (GA/TC)n inserts demonstrated that the genetic instability of (GA/TC)n microsatellites depends highly on their length (number of repeats). These observations are in agreement with similar studies performed on repetitive sequences from humans and other organisms.

5. One motif to bind them: A small-XXX-small motif affects transmembrane domain 1 oligomerization, function, localization, and cross-talk between two yeast GPCRs.

PubMed

Lock, Antonia; Forfar, Rachel; Weston, Cathryn; Bowsher, Leo; Upton, Graham J G; Reynolds, Christopher A; Ladds, Graham; Dixon, Ann M

2014-12-01

G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are the largest family of cell-surface receptors in mammals and facilitate a range of physiological responses triggered by a variety of ligands. GPCRs were thought to function as monomers, however it is now accepted that GPCR homo- and hetero-oligomers also exist and influence receptor properties. The Schizosaccharomyces pombe GPCR Mam2 is a pheromone-sensing receptor involved in mating and has previously been shown to form oligomers in vivo. The first transmembrane domain (TMD) of Mam2 contains a small-XXX-small motif, overrepresented in membrane proteins and well-known for promoting helix-helix interactions. An ortholog of Mam2 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Ste2, contains an analogous small-XXX-small motif which has been shown to contribute to receptor homo-oligomerization, localization and function. Here we have used experimental and computational techniques to characterize the role of the small-XXX-small motif in function and assembly of Mam2 for the first time. We find that disruption of the motif via mutagenesis leads to reduction of Mam2 TMD1 homo-oligomerization and pheromone-responsive cellular signaling of the full-length protein. It also impairs correct targeting to the plasma membrane. Mutation of the analogous motif in Ste2 yielded similar results, suggesting a conserved mechanism for assembly. Using co-expression of the two fungal receptors in conjunction with computational models, we demonstrate a functional change in G protein specificity and propose that this is brought about through hetero-dimeric interactions of Mam2 with Ste2 via the complementary small-XXX-small motifs. This highlights the potential of these motifs to affect a range of properties that can be investigated in other GPCRs.

6. Metagenome fragment classification based on multiple motif-occurrence profiles.

PubMed

Matsushita, Naoki; Seno, Shigeto; Takenaka, Yoichi; Matsuda, Hideo

2014-01-01

A vast amount of metagenomic data has been obtained by extracting multiple genomes simultaneously from microbial communities, including genomes from uncultivable microbes. By analyzing these metagenomic data, novel microbes are discovered and new microbial functions are elucidated. The first step in analyzing these data is sequenced-read classification into reference genomes from which each read can be derived. The Naïve Bayes Classifier is a method for this classification. To identify the derivation of the reads, this method calculates a score based on the occurrence of a DNA sequence motif in each reference genome. However, large differences in the sizes of the reference genomes can bias the scoring of the reads. This bias might cause erroneous classification and decrease the classification accuracy. To address this issue, we have updated the Naïve Bayes Classifier method using multiple sets of occurrence profiles for each reference genome by normalizing the genome sizes, dividing each genome sequence into a set of subsequences of similar length and generating profiles for each subsequence. This multiple profile strategy improves the accuracy of the results generated by the Naïve Bayes Classifier method for simulated and Sargasso Sea datasets.

7. Plasticity of the RNA Kink Turn Structural Motif

SciTech Connect

Antonioli, A.; Cochrane, J; Lipchock, S; Strobel, S

2010-01-01

The kink turn (K-turn) is an RNA structural motif found in many biologically significant RNAs. While most examples of the K-turn have a similar fold, the crystal structure of the Azoarcus group I intron revealed a novel RNA conformation, a reverse kink turn bent in the direction opposite that of a consensus K-turn. The reverse K-turn is bent toward the major grooves rather than the minor grooves of the flanking helices, yet the sequence differs from the K-turn consensus by only a single nucleotide. Here we demonstrate that the reverse bend direction is not solely defined by internal sequence elements, but is instead affected by structural elements external to the K-turn. It bends toward the major groove under the direction of a tetraloop-tetraloop receptor. The ability of one sequence to form two distinct structures demonstrates the inherent plasticity of the K-turn sequence. Such plasticity suggests that the K-turn is not a primary element in RNA folding, but instead is shaped by other structural elements within the RNA or ribonucleoprotein assembly.

8. Varying levels of complexity in transcription factor binding motifs

PubMed Central

Keilwagen, Jens; Grau, Jan

2015-01-01

Binding of transcription factors to DNA is one of the keystones of gene regulation. The existence of statistical dependencies between binding site positions is widely accepted, while their relevance for computational predictions has been debated. Building probabilistic models of binding sites that may capture dependencies is still challenging, since the most successful motif discovery approaches require numerical optimization techniques, which are not suited for selecting dependency structures. To overcome this issue, we propose sparse local inhomogeneous mixture (Slim) models that combine putative dependency structures in a weighted manner allowing for numerical optimization of dependency structure and model parameters simultaneously. We find that Slim models yield a substantially better prediction performance than previous models on genomic context protein binding microarray data sets and on ChIP-seq data sets. To elucidate the reasons for the improved performance, we develop dependency logos, which allow for visual inspection of dependency structures within binding sites. We find that the dependency structures discovered by Slim models are highly diverse and highly transcription factor-specific, which emphasizes the need for flexible dependency models. The observed dependency structures range from broad heterogeneities to sparse dependencies between neighboring and non-neighboring binding site positions. PMID:26116565

9. Phosphatidylinositol transfer proteins: sequence motifs in structural and evolutionary analyses

PubMed Central

Wyckoff, Gerald J.; Solidar, Ada; Yoden, Marilyn D.

2016-01-01

Phosphatidylinositol transfer proteins (PITP) are a family of monomeric proteins that bind and transfer phosphatidylinositol and phosphatidylcholine between membrane compartments. They are required for production of inositol and diacylglycerol second messengers, and are found in most metazoan organisms. While PITPs are known to carry out crucial cell-signaling roles in many organisms, the structure, function and evolution of the majority of family members remains unexplored; primarily because the ubiquity and diversity of the family thwarts traditional methods of global alignment. To surmount this obstacle, we instead took a novel approach, using MEME and a parsimony-based analysis to create a cladogram of conserved sequence motifs in 56 PITP family proteins from 26 species. In keeping with previous functional annotations, three clades were supported within our evolutionary analysis; two classes of soluble proteins and a class of membrane-associated proteins. By, focusing on conserved regions, the analysis allowed for in depth queries regarding possible functional roles of PITP proteins in both intra- and extra- cellular signaling. PMID:27429707

10. An Automaton for Motifs Recognition in DNA Sequences

Perez, Gerardo; Mejia, Yuridia P.; Olmos, Ivan; Gonzalez, Jesus A.; Sánchez, Patricia; Vázquez, Candelario

In this paper we present a new algorithm to find inexact motifs (which are transformed into a set of exact subsequences) from a DNA sequence. Our algorithm builds an automaton that searches for the set of exact subsequences in the DNA database (that can be very long). It starts with a preprocessing phase in which it builds the finite automaton, in this phase it also considers the case in which two different subsequences share a substring (in other words, the subsequences might overlap), this is implemented in a similar way as the KMP algorithm. During the searching phase, the algorithm recognizes all instances in the set of input subsequences that appear in the DNA sequence. The automaton is able to perform the search phase in linear time with respect to the dimension of the input sequence. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm performs better than the Aho-Corasick algorithm, which has been proved to perform better than the naive approach, even more; it is considered to run in linear time.

11. Ab initio coordination chemistry for nickel chelation motifs.

PubMed

Sudan, R Jesu Jaya; Kumari, J Lesitha Jeeva; Sudandiradoss, C

2015-01-01

Chelation therapy is one of the most appreciated methods in the treatment of metal induced disease predisposition. Coordination chemistry provides a way to understand metal association in biological structures. In this work we have implemented coordination chemistry to study nickel coordination due to its high impact in industrial usage and thereby health consequences. This paper reports the analysis of nickel coordination from a large dataset of nickel bound structures and sequences. Coordination patterns predicted from the structures are reported in terms of donors, chelate length, coordination number, chelate geometry, structural fold and architecture. The analysis revealed histidine as the most favored residue in nickel coordination. The most common chelates identified were histidine based namely HHH, HDH, HEH and HH spaced at specific intervals. Though a maximum coordination number of 8 was observed, the presence of a single protein donor was noted to be mandatory in nickel coordination. The coordination pattern did not reveal any specific fold, nevertheless we report preferable residue spacing for specific structural architecture. In contrast, the analysis of nickel binding proteins from bacterial and archeal species revealed no common coordination patterns. Nickel binding sequence motifs were noted to be organism specific and protein class specific. As a result we identified about 13 signatures derived from 13 classes of nickel binding proteins. The specifications on nickel coordination presented in this paper will prove beneficial for developing better chelation strategies.

12. Metagenome fragment classification based on multiple motif-occurrence profiles.

PubMed

Matsushita, Naoki; Seno, Shigeto; Takenaka, Yoichi; Matsuda, Hideo

2014-01-01

A vast amount of metagenomic data has been obtained by extracting multiple genomes simultaneously from microbial communities, including genomes from uncultivable microbes. By analyzing these metagenomic data, novel microbes are discovered and new microbial functions are elucidated. The first step in analyzing these data is sequenced-read classification into reference genomes from which each read can be derived. The Naïve Bayes Classifier is a method for this classification. To identify the derivation of the reads, this method calculates a score based on the occurrence of a DNA sequence motif in each reference genome. However, large differences in the sizes of the reference genomes can bias the scoring of the reads. This bias might cause erroneous classification and decrease the classification accuracy. To address this issue, we have updated the Naïve Bayes Classifier method using multiple sets of occurrence profiles for each reference genome by normalizing the genome sizes, dividing each genome sequence into a set of subsequences of similar length and generating profiles for each subsequence. This multiple profile strategy improves the accuracy of the results generated by the Naïve Bayes Classifier method for simulated and Sargasso Sea datasets. PMID:25210663

13. Motif mimetic of epsin perturbs tumor growth and metastasis

PubMed Central

Dong, Yunzhou; Wu, Hao; Rahman, H.N. Ashiqur; Liu, Yanjun; Pasula, Satish; Tessneer, Kandice L.; Cai, Xiaofeng; Liu, Xiaolei; Chang, Baojun; McManus, John; Hahn, Scott; Dong, Jiali; Brophy, Megan L.; Yu, Lili; Song, Kai; Silasi-Mansat, Robert; Saunders, Debra; Njoku, Charity; Song, Hoogeun; Mehta-D’Souza, Padmaja; Towner, Rheal; Lupu, Florea; McEver, Rodger P.; Xia, Lijun; Boerboom, Derek; Srinivasan, R. Sathish; Chen, Hong

2015-01-01

Tumor angiogenesis is critical for cancer progression. In multiple murine models, endothelium-specific epsin deficiency abrogates tumor progression by shifting the balance of VEGFR2 signaling toward uncontrolled tumor angiogenesis, resulting in dysfunctional tumor vasculature. Here, we designed a tumor endothelium–targeting chimeric peptide (UPI) for the purpose of inhibiting endogenous tumor endothelial epsins by competitively binding activated VEGFR2. We determined that the UPI peptide specifically targets tumor endothelial VEGFR2 through an unconventional binding mechanism that is driven by unique residues present only in the epsin ubiquitin–interacting motif (UIM) and the VEGFR2 kinase domain. In murine models of neoangiogenesis, UPI peptide increased VEGF-driven angiogenesis and neovascularization but spared quiescent vascular beds. Further, in tumor-bearing mice, UPI peptide markedly impaired functional tumor angiogenesis, tumor growth, and metastasis, resulting in a notable increase in survival. Coadministration of UPI peptide with cytotoxic chemotherapeutics further sustained tumor inhibition. Equipped with localized tumor endothelium–specific targeting, our UPI peptide provides potential for an effective and alternative cancer therapy. PMID:26571402

14. Network motifs that stabilize the hybrid epithelial/mesenchymal phenotype

Jolly, Mohit Kumar; Jia, Dongya; Tripathi, Satyendra; Hanash, Samir; Mani, Sendurai; Ben-Jacob, Eshel; Levine, Herbert

Epithelial to Mesenchymal Transition (EMT) and its reverse - MET - are hallmarks of cancer metastasis. While transitioning between E and M phenotypes, cells can also attain a hybrid epithelial/mesenchymal (E/M) phenotype that enables collective cell migration as a cluster of Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs). These clusters can form 50-times more tumors than individually migrating CTCs, underlining their importance in metastasis. However, this hybrid E/M phenotype has been hypothesized to be only a transient one that is attained en route EMT. Here, via mathematically modeling, we identify certain phenotypic stability factors' that couple with the core three-way decision-making circuit (miR-200/ZEB) and can maintain or stabilize the hybrid E/M phenotype. Further, we show experimentally that this phenotype can be maintained stably at a single-cell level, and knockdown of these factors impairs collective cell migration. We also show that these factors enable the association of hybrid E/M with high stemness or tumor-initiating potential. Finally, based on these factors, we deduce specific network motifs that can maintain the E/M phenotype. Our framework can be used to elucidate the effect of other players in regulating cellular plasticity during metastasis. This work was supported by NSF PHY-1427654 (Center for Theoretical Biological Physics) and the CPRIT Scholar in Cancer Research of the State of Texas at Rice University.

15. Squash inhibitors: from structural motifs to macrocyclic knottins.

PubMed

Chiche, Laurent; Heitz, Annie; Gelly, Jean-Christophe; Gracy, Jérôme; Chau, Pham T T; Ha, Phan T; Hernandez, Jean-François; Le-Nguyen, Dung

2004-10-01

In this article, we will first introduce the squash inhibitor, a well established family of highly potent canonical serine proteinase inhibitors isolated from Cucurbitaceae. The squash inhibitors were among the first discovered proteins with the typical knottin fold shared by numerous peptides extracted from plants, animals and fungi. Knottins contain three knotted disulfide bridges, two of them arranged as a Cystine-Stabilized Beta-sheet motif. In contrast to cyclotides for which no natural linear homolog is known, most squash inhibitors are linear. However, Momordica cochinchinensis Trypsin Inhibitor-I and (MCoTI-I and -II), 34-residue squash inhibitors isolated from seeds of a common Cucurbitaceae from Vietnam, were recently shown to be macrocyclic. In these circular squash inhibitors, a short peptide linker connects residues that correspond to the N- and C-termini in homologous linear squash inhibitors. In this review we present the isolation, characterization, chemical synthesis, and activity of these macrocyclic knottins. The solution structure of MCoTI-II will be compared with topologically similar cyclotides, homologous linear squash inhibitors and other knottins, and potential applications of such scaffolds will be discussed. PMID:15551519

16. Sulfur-induced structural motifs on copper and gold surfaces

Walen, Holly

The interaction of sulfur with copper and gold surfaces plays a fundamental role in important phenomena that include coarsening of surface nanostructures, and self-assembly of alkanethiols. Here, we identify and analyze unique sulfur-induced structural motifs observed on the low-index surfaces of these two metals. We seek out these structures in an effort to better understand the fundamental interactions between these metals and sulfur that lends to the stability and favorability of metal-sulfur complexes vs. chemisorbed atomic sulfur. We choose very specific conditions: very low temperature (5 K), and very low sulfur coverage (≤ 0.1 monolayer). In this region of temperature-coverage space, which has not been examined previously for these adsorbate-metal systems, the effects of individual interactions between metals and sulfur are most apparent and can be assessed extensively with the aid of theory and modeling. Furthermore, at this temperature diffusion is minimal and relatively-mobile species can be isolated, and at low coverage the structures observed are not consumed by an extended reconstruction. The primary experimental technique is scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). The experimental observations presented here---made under identical conditions---together with extensive DFT analyses, allow comparisons and insights into factors that favor the existence of metal-sulfur complexes, vs. chemisorbed atomic sulfur, on metal terraces. We believe this data will be instrumental in better understanding the complex phenomena occurring between the surfaces of coinage metals and sulfur.

17. Regulation of GPCR Anterograde Trafficking by Molecular Chaperones and Motifs.

PubMed

Young, Brent; Wertman, Jaime; Dupré, Denis J

2015-01-01

G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) make up a superfamily of integral membrane proteins that respond to a wide variety of extracellular stimuli, giving them an important role in cell function and survival. They have also proven to be valuable targets in the fight against various diseases. As such, GPCR signal regulation has received considerable attention over the last few decades. With the amplitude of signaling being determined in large part by receptor density at the plasma membrane, several endogenous mechanisms for modulating GPCR expression at the cell surface have come to light. It has been shown that cell surface expression is determined by both exocytic and endocytic processes. However, the body of knowledge surrounding GPCR trafficking from the endoplasmic reticulum to the plasma membrane, commonly known as anterograde trafficking, has considerable room for growth. We focus here on the current paradigms of anterograde GPCR trafficking. We will discuss the regulatory role of both the general and "nonclassical private" chaperone systems in GPCR trafficking as well as conserved motifs that serve as modulators of GPCR export from the endoplasmic reticulum and Golgi apparatus. Together, these topics summarize some of the known mechanisms by which the cell regulates anterograde GPCR trafficking. PMID:26055064

18. Atomic Force Microscopy of Arrays of Asymmetrical DNA Motifs

SciTech Connect

Sherman, W.B.; Mudalige, T.K.

2012-03-21

DNA can easily be assembled into wide and relatively flat nanostructures that lend themselves to study via Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). It is often important to know which side of an assembly the AFM is imaging. This is particularly crucial for characterizing nanomachines, where the movement must be measured relative to fiducial features visible to the AFM. We have developed a cheap and simple technique for building DNA arrays with distinguishable sides, a technique requiring 10 or fewer strands - dozens or hundreds of strands fewer than used for these purposes previously. Our approach involves constructing arrays out of DNA tiles that have low apparent symmetry when imaged via AFM. We have surveyed the effects of varying degrees of motif asymmetry in AFM micrographs. Even at resolutions where the individual tiles cannot be resolved (either because of sub-optimal tip quality, or very gentle tapping by the AFM tip) the larger scale features of the arrays have predictable structures that allow the determination of which side of the array is facing up. We have used this information to verify that DNA hairpins attached to either the up- or down-facing side of an array on mica can be detected in AFM height scans. We have also characterized differences in appearance between hairpins attached to different sides of the arrays.

19. Eukaryotic penelope-like retroelements encode hammerhead ribozyme motifs.

PubMed

Cervera, Amelia; De la Peña, Marcos

2014-11-01

Small self-cleaving RNAs, such as the paradigmatic Hammerhead ribozyme (HHR), have been recently found widespread in DNA genomes across all kingdoms of life. In this work, we found that new HHR variants are preserved in the ancient family of Penelope-like elements (PLEs), a group of eukaryotic retrotransposons regarded as exceptional for encoding telomerase-like retrotranscriptases and spliceosomal introns. Our bioinformatic analysis revealed not only the presence of minimalist HHRs in the two flanking repeats of PLEs but also their massive and widespread occurrence in metazoan genomes. The architecture of these ribozymes indicates that they may work as dimers, although their low self-cleavage activity in vitro suggests the requirement of other factors in vivo. In plants, however, PLEs show canonical HHRs, whereas fungi and protist PLEs encode ribozyme variants with a stable active conformation as monomers. Overall, our data confirm the connection of self-cleaving RNAs with eukaryotic retroelements and unveil these motifs as a significant fraction of the encoded information in eukaryotic genomes. PMID:25135949

20. Notch signaling from the endosome requires a conserved dileucine motif

PubMed Central

Zheng, Li; Saunders, Cosmo A.; Sorensen, Erika B.; Waxmonsky, Nicole C.; Conner, Sean D.

2013-01-01

Notch signaling is reliant on γ-secretase–mediated processing, although the subcellular location where γ-secretase cleaves Notch to initiate signaling remains unresolved. Accumulating evidence demonstrates that Notch signaling is modulated by endocytosis and endosomal transport. In this study, we investigated the relationship between Notch transport itinerary and signaling capacity. In doing so, we discovered a highly conserved dileucine sorting signal encoded within the cytoplasmic tail that directs Notch to the limiting membrane of the lysosome for signaling. Mutating the dileucine motif led to receptor accumulation in cation-dependent mannose-phosphate receptor–positive tubular early endosomes and a reduction in Notch signaling capacity. Moreover, truncated receptor forms that mimic activated Notch were readily cleaved by γ-secretase within the endosome; however, the cleavage product was proteasome-sensitive and failed to contribute to robust signaling. Collectively these results indicate that Notch signaling from the lysosome limiting membrane is conserved and that receptor targeting to this compartment is an active process. Moreover, the data support a model in which Notch signaling in mammalian systems is initiated from either the plasma membrane or lysosome, but not the early endosome. PMID:23171551

1. Tyrosine motifs are required for prestin basolateral membrane targeting

PubMed Central

Zhang, Yifan; Moeini-Naghani, Iman; Bai, JunPing; Santos-Sacchi, Joseph; Navaratnam, Dhasakumar S.

2015-01-01

ABSTRACT Prestin is targeted to the lateral wall of outer hair cells (OHCs) where its electromotility is critical for cochlear amplification. Using MDCK cells as a model system for polarized epithelial sorting, we demonstrate that prestin uses tyrosine residues, in a YXXΦ motif, to target the basolateral surface. Both Y520 and Y667 are important for basolateral targeting of prestin. Mutation of these residues to glutamine or alanine resulted in retention within the Golgi and delayed egress from the Golgi in Y667Q. Basolateral targeting is restored upon mutation to phenylalanine suggesting the importance of a phenol ring in the tyrosine side chain. We also demonstrate that prestin targeting to the basolateral surface is dependent on AP1B (μ1B), and that prestin uses transferrin containing early endosomes in its passage from the Golgi to the basolateral plasma membrane. The presence of AP1B (μ1B) in OHCs, and parallels between prestin targeting to the basolateral surface of OHCs and polarized epithelial cells suggest that outer hair cells resemble polarized epithelia rather than neurons in this important phenotypic measure. PMID:25596279

2. Eukaryotic Penelope-Like Retroelements Encode Hammerhead Ribozyme Motifs

PubMed Central

Cervera, Amelia; De la Peña, Marcos

2014-01-01

Small self-cleaving RNAs, such as the paradigmatic Hammerhead ribozyme (HHR), have been recently found widespread in DNA genomes across all kingdoms of life. In this work, we found that new HHR variants are preserved in the ancient family of Penelope-like elements (PLEs), a group of eukaryotic retrotransposons regarded as exceptional for encoding telomerase-like retrotranscriptases and spliceosomal introns. Our bioinformatic analysis revealed not only the presence of minimalist HHRs in the two flanking repeats of PLEs but also their massive and widespread occurrence in metazoan genomes. The architecture of these ribozymes indicates that they may work as dimers, although their low self-cleavage activity in vitro suggests the requirement of other factors in vivo. In plants, however, PLEs show canonical HHRs, whereas fungi and protist PLEs encode ribozyme variants with a stable active conformation as monomers. Overall, our data confirm the connection of self-cleaving RNAs with eukaryotic retroelements and unveil these motifs as a significant fraction of the encoded information in eukaryotic genomes. PMID:25135949

3. Ab initio coordination chemistry for nickel chelation motifs.

PubMed

Sudan, R Jesu Jaya; Kumari, J Lesitha Jeeva; Sudandiradoss, C

2015-01-01

Chelation therapy is one of the most appreciated methods in the treatment of metal induced disease predisposition. Coordination chemistry provides a way to understand metal association in biological structures. In this work we have implemented coordination chemistry to study nickel coordination due to its high impact in industrial usage and thereby health consequences. This paper reports the analysis of nickel coordination from a large dataset of nickel bound structures and sequences. Coordination patterns predicted from the structures are reported in terms of donors, chelate length, coordination number, chelate geometry, structural fold and architecture. The analysis revealed histidine as the most favored residue in nickel coordination. The most common chelates identified were histidine based namely HHH, HDH, HEH and HH spaced at specific intervals. Though a maximum coordination number of 8 was observed, the presence of a single protein donor was noted to be mandatory in nickel coordination. The coordination pattern did not reveal any specific fold, nevertheless we report preferable residue spacing for specific structural architecture. In contrast, the analysis of nickel binding proteins from bacterial and archeal species revealed no common coordination patterns. Nickel binding sequence motifs were noted to be organism specific and protein class specific. As a result we identified about 13 signatures derived from 13 classes of nickel binding proteins. The specifications on nickel coordination presented in this paper will prove beneficial for developing better chelation strategies. PMID:25985439

4. Squash inhibitors: from structural motifs to macrocyclic knottins.

PubMed

Chiche, Laurent; Heitz, Annie; Gelly, Jean-Christophe; Gracy, Jérôme; Chau, Pham T T; Ha, Phan T; Hernandez, Jean-François; Le-Nguyen, Dung

2004-10-01

In this article, we will first introduce the squash inhibitor, a well established family of highly potent canonical serine proteinase inhibitors isolated from Cucurbitaceae. The squash inhibitors were among the first discovered proteins with the typical knottin fold shared by numerous peptides extracted from plants, animals and fungi. Knottins contain three knotted disulfide bridges, two of them arranged as a Cystine-Stabilized Beta-sheet motif. In contrast to cyclotides for which no natural linear homolog is known, most squash inhibitors are linear. However, Momordica cochinchinensis Trypsin Inhibitor-I and (MCoTI-I and -II), 34-residue squash inhibitors isolated from seeds of a common Cucurbitaceae from Vietnam, were recently shown to be macrocyclic. In these circular squash inhibitors, a short peptide linker connects residues that correspond to the N- and C-termini in homologous linear squash inhibitors. In this review we present the isolation, characterization, chemical synthesis, and activity of these macrocyclic knottins. The solution structure of MCoTI-II will be compared with topologically similar cyclotides, homologous linear squash inhibitors and other knottins, and potential applications of such scaffolds will be discussed.

5. Defense-Inducing Volatiles: In Search of the Active Motif

PubMed Central

Lion, Ulrich; Boland, Wilhelm

2008-01-01

Herbivore-induced volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are widely appreciated as an indirect defense mechanism since carnivorous arthropods use VOCs as cues for host localization and then attack herbivores. Another function of VOCs is plant–plant signaling. That VOCs elicit defensive responses in neighboring plants has been reported from various species, and different compounds have been found to be active. In order to search for a structural motif that characterizes active VOCs, we used lima bean (Phaseolus lunatus), which responds to VOCs released from damaged plants with an increased secretion of extrafloral nectar (EFN). We exposed lima bean to (Z)-3-hexenyl acetate, a substance naturally released from damaged lima bean and known to induce EFN secretion, and to several structurally related compounds. (E)-3-hexenyl acetate, (E)-2-hexenyl acetate, 5-hexenyl acetate, (Z)-3-hexenylisovalerate, and (Z)-3-hexenylbutyrate all elicited significant increases in EFN secretion, demonstrating that neither the (Z)-configuration nor the position of the double-bond nor the size of the acid moiety are critical for the EFN-inducing effect. Our result is not consistent with previous concepts that postulate reactive electrophile species (Michael-acceptor-systems) for defense-induction in Arabidopsis. Instead, we postulate that physicochemical processes, including interactions with odorant binding proteins and resulting in changes in transmembrane potentials, can underlie VOCs-mediated signaling processes. PMID:18408973

6. Information processing by simple molecular motifs and susceptibility to noise.

PubMed

Mc Mahon, Siobhan S; Lenive, Oleg; Filippi, Sarah; Stumpf, Michael P H

2015-09-01

Biological organisms rely on their ability to sense and respond appropriately to their environment. The molecular mechanisms that facilitate these essential processes are however subject to a range of random effects and stochastic processes, which jointly affect the reliability of information transmission between receptors and, for example, the physiological downstream response. Information is mathematically defined in terms of the entropy; and the extent of information flowing across an information channel or signalling system is typically measured by the 'mutual information', or the reduction in the uncertainty about the output once the input signal is known. Here, we quantify how extrinsic and intrinsic noise affects the transmission of simple signals along simple motifs of molecular interaction networks. Even for very simple systems, the effects of the different sources of variability alone and in combination can give rise to bewildering complexity. In particular, extrinsic variability is apt to generate 'apparent' information that can, in extreme cases, mask the actual information that for a single system would flow between the different molecular components making up cellular signalling pathways. We show how this artificial inflation in apparent information arises and how the effects of different types of noise alone and in combination can be understood.

7. VAMP subfamilies identified by specific R-SNARE motifs.

PubMed

Rossi, Valeria; Picco, Raffaella; Vacca, Marcella; D'Esposito, Maurizio; D'Urso, Michele; Galli, Thierry; Filippini, Francesco

2004-05-01

In eukaryotes, interactions among the alpha-helical coiled-coil domains (CCDs) of soluble N-ethylmaleimide-sensitive factor attachment protein receptors (SNAREs) play a pivotal role in mediating the fusion among vesicles and target membranes. Surface residues of such CCDs are major candidates to regulate the specificity of membrane fusion, as they may alter local charge at the interaction layers and surface of the fusion complex, possibly modulating its formation and/or the binding of non-SNARE regulatory factors. Based on alternate patterns in surface residues, we have identified two motifs which group vesicular SNAREs in two novel subfamilies: RG-SNAREs and RD-SNAREs. The RG-SNARE CCD is common to all members of the widely conserved family of long VAMPs or longins and to yeast and non-neuronal VAMPs, possibly mediating "basic" fusion mechanisms; instead, only synaptobrevins from Bilateria share an RD-SNARE CCD, which is likely to mediate interactions to specific, yet unknown, regulatory factors and/or be the landmark of rapid fusion reactions like that mediating the release of neurotransmitters.

8. Ab Initio Coordination Chemistry for Nickel Chelation Motifs

PubMed Central

Jesu Jaya Sudan, R.; Lesitha Jeeva Kumari, J.; Sudandiradoss, C.

2015-01-01

Chelation therapy is one of the most appreciated methods in the treatment of metal induced disease predisposition. Coordination chemistry provides a way to understand metal association in biological structures. In this work we have implemented coordination chemistry to study nickel coordination due to its high impact in industrial usage and thereby health consequences. This paper reports the analysis of nickel coordination from a large dataset of nickel bound structures and sequences. Coordination patterns predicted from the structures are reported in terms of donors, chelate length, coordination number, chelate geometry, structural fold and architecture. The analysis revealed histidine as the most favored residue in nickel coordination. The most common chelates identified were histidine based namely HHH, HDH, HEH and HH spaced at specific intervals. Though a maximum coordination number of 8 was observed, the presence of a single protein donor was noted to be mandatory in nickel coordination. The coordination pattern did not reveal any specific fold, nevertheless we report preferable residue spacing for specific structural architecture. In contrast, the analysis of nickel binding proteins from bacterial and archeal species revealed no common coordination patterns. Nickel binding sequence motifs were noted to be organism specific and protein class specific. As a result we identified about 13 signatures derived from 13 classes of nickel binding proteins. The specifications on nickel coordination presented in this paper will prove beneficial for developing better chelation strategies. PMID:25985439

9. Organizational motifs for ground squirrel cone bipolar cells.

PubMed

Light, Adam C; Zhu, Yongling; Shi, Jun; Saszik, Shannon; Lindstrom, Sarah; Davidson, Laura; Li, Xiaoyu; Chiodo, Vince A; Hauswirth, William W; Li, Wei; DeVries, Steven H

2012-09-01

In daylight vision, parallel processing starts at the cone synapse. Cone signals flow to On and Off bipolar cells, which are further divided into types according to morphology, immunocytochemistry, and function. The axons of the bipolar cell types stratify at different levels in the inner plexiform layer (IPL) and can interact with costratifying amacrine and ganglion cells. These interactions endow the ganglion cell types with unique functional properties. The wiring that underlies the interactions among bipolar, amacrine, and ganglion cells is poorly understood. It may be easier to elucidate this wiring if organizational rules can be established. We identify 13 types of cone bipolar cells in the ground squirrel, 11 of which contact contiguous cones, with the possible exception of short-wavelength-sensitive cones. Cells were identified by antibody labeling, tracer filling, and Golgi-like filling following transduction with an adeno-associated virus encoding for green fluorescent protein. The 11 bipolar cell types displayed two organizational patterns. In the first pattern, eight to 10 of the 11 types came in pairs with partially overlapping axonal stratification. Pairs shared morphological, immunocytochemical, and functional properties. The existence of similar pairs is a new motif that might have implications for how signals first diverge from a cone to bipolar cells and then reconverge onto a costratifying ganglion cell. The second pattern is a mirror symmetric organization about the middle of the IPL involving at least seven bipolar cell types. This anatomical symmetry may be associated with a functional symmetry in On and Off ganglion cell responses.

10. Fission Yeast Hotspot Sequence Motifs Are Also Active in Budding Yeast

PubMed Central

Steiner, Walter W.; Steiner, Estelle M.

2012-01-01

In most organisms, including humans, meiotic recombination occurs preferentially at a limited number of sites in the genome known as hotspots. There has been substantial progress recently in elucidating the factors determining the location of meiotic recombination hotspots, and it is becoming clear that simple sequence motifs play a significant role. In S. pombe, there are at least five unique sequence motifs that have been shown to produce hotspots of recombination, and it is likely that there are more. In S. cerevisiae, simple sequence motifs have also been shown to produce hotspots or show significant correlations with hotspots. Some of the hotspot motifs in both yeasts are known or suspected to bind transcription factors (TFs), which are required for the activity of those hotspots. Here we show that four of the five hotspot motifs identified in S. pombe also create hotspots in the distantly related budding yeast S. cerevisiae. For one of these hotspots, M26 (also called CRE), we identify TFs, Cst6 and Sko1, that activate and inhibit the hotspot, respectively. In addition, two of the hotspot motifs show significant correlations with naturally occurring hotspots. The conservation of these hotspots between the distantly related fission and budding yeasts suggests that these sequence motifs, and others yet to be discovered, may function widely as hotspots in many diverse organisms. PMID:23300865

11. RNA 3D Structural Motifs: Definition, Identification, Annotation, and Database Searching

Nasalean, Lorena; Stombaugh, Jesse; Zirbel, Craig L.; Leontis, Neocles B.

Structured RNA molecules resemble proteins in the hierarchical organization of their global structures, folding and broad range of functions. Structured RNAs are composed of recurrent modular motifs that play specific functional roles. Some motifs direct the folding of the RNA or stabilize the folded structure through tertiary interactions. Others bind ligands or proteins or catalyze chemical reactions. Therefore, it is desirable, starting from the RNA sequence, to be able to predict the locations of recurrent motifs in RNA molecules. Conversely, the potential occurrence of one or more known 3D RNA motifs may indicate that a genomic sequence codes for a structured RNA molecule. To identify known RNA structural motifs in new RNA sequences, precise structure-based definitions are needed that specify the core nucleotides of each motif and their conserved interactions. By comparing instances of each recurrent motif and applying base pair isosteriCity relations, one can identify neutral mutations that preserve its structure and function in the contexts in which it occurs.

12. Recurrent motifs as resonant attractor states in the narrative field: a testable model of archetype.

PubMed

Goodwyn, Erik

2013-06-01

At the most basic level, archetypes represented Jung's attempt to explain the phenomenon of recurrent myths and folktale motifs (Jung 1956, 1959, para. 99). But the archetype remains controversial as an explanation of recurrent motifs, as the existence of recurrent motifs does not prove that archetypes exist. Thus, the challenge for contemporary archetype theory is not merely to demonstrate that recurrent motifs exist, since that is not disputed, but to demonstrate that archetypes exist and cause recurrent motifs. The present paper proposes a new model which is unlike others in that it postulates how the archetype creates resonant motifs. This model necessarily clarifies and adapts some of Jung's seminal ideas on archetype in order to provide a working framework grounded in contemporary practice and methodologies. For the first time, a model of archetype is proposed that can be validated on empirical, rather than theoretical grounds. This is achieved by linking the archetype to the hard data of recurrent motifs rather than academic trends in other fields.

13. The Methionine-aromatic Motif Plays a Unique Role in Stabilizing Protein Structure*

PubMed Central

Valley, Christopher C.; Cembran, Alessandro; Perlmutter, Jason D.; Lewis, Andrew K.; Labello, Nicholas P.; Gao, Jiali; Sachs, Jonathan N.

2012-01-01

Of the 20 amino acids, the precise function of methionine (Met) remains among the least well understood. To establish a determining characteristic of methionine that fundamentally differentiates it from purely hydrophobic residues, we have used in vitro cellular experiments, molecular simulations, quantum calculations, and a bioinformatics screen of the Protein Data Bank. We show that approximately one-third of all known protein structures contain an energetically stabilizing Met-aromatic motif and, remarkably, that greater than 10,000 structures contain this motif more than 10 times. Critically, we show that as compared with a purely hydrophobic interaction, the Met-aromatic motif yields an additional stabilization of 1–1.5 kcal/mol. To highlight its importance and to dissect the energetic underpinnings of this motif, we have studied two clinically relevant TNF ligand-receptor complexes, namely TRAIL-DR5 and LTα-TNFR1. In both cases, we show that the motif is necessary for high affinity ligand binding as well as function. Additionally, we highlight previously overlooked instances of the motif in several disease-related Met mutations. Our results strongly suggest that the Met-aromatic motif should be exploited in the rational design of therapeutics targeting a range of proteins. PMID:22859300

14. MODA: an efficient algorithm for network motif discovery in biological networks.

PubMed

Omidi, Saeed; Schreiber, Falk; Masoudi-Nejad, Ali

2009-10-01

In recent years, interest has been growing in the study of complex networks. Since Erdös and Rényi (1960) proposed their random graph model about 50 years ago, many researchers have investigated and shaped this field. Many indicators have been proposed to assess the global features of networks. Recently, an active research area has developed in studying local features named motifs as the building blocks of networks. Unfortunately, network motif discovery is a computationally hard problem and finding rather large motifs (larger than 8 nodes) by means of current algorithms is impractical as it demands too much computational effort. In this paper, we present a new algorithm (MODA) that incorporates techniques such as a pattern growth approach for extracting larger motifs efficiently. We have tested our algorithm and found it able to identify larger motifs with more than 8 nodes more efficiently than most of the current state-of-the-art motif discovery algorithms. While most of the algorithms rely on induced subgraphs as motifs of the networks, MODA is able to extract both induced and non-induced subgraphs simultaneously. The MODA source code is freely available at: http://LBB.ut.ac.ir/Download/LBBsoft/MODA/

15. Trend Motif: A Graph Mining Approach for Analysis of Dynamic Complex Networks

SciTech Connect

Jin, R; McCallen, S; Almaas, E

2007-05-28

Complex networks have been used successfully in scientific disciplines ranging from sociology to microbiology to describe systems of interacting units. Until recently, studies of complex networks have mainly focused on their network topology. However, in many real world applications, the edges and vertices have associated attributes that are frequently represented as vertex or edge weights. Furthermore, these weights are often not static, instead changing with time and forming a time series. Hence, to fully understand the dynamics of the complex network, we have to consider both network topology and related time series data. In this work, we propose a motif mining approach to identify trend motifs for such purposes. Simply stated, a trend motif describes a recurring subgraph where each of its vertices or edges displays similar dynamics over a userdefined period. Given this, each trend motif occurrence can help reveal significant events in a complex system; frequent trend motifs may aid in uncovering dynamic rules of change for the system, and the distribution of trend motifs may characterize the global dynamics of the system. Here, we have developed efficient mining algorithms to extract trend motifs. Our experimental validation using three disparate empirical datasets, ranging from the stock market, world trade, to a protein interaction network, has demonstrated the efficiency and effectiveness of our approach.

16. Coagulase and Efb of Staphylococcus aureus Have a Common Fibrinogen Binding Motif

PubMed Central

Ko, Ya-Ping; Kang, Mingsong; Ganesh, Vannakambadi K.; Ravirajan, Dharmanand; Li, Bin

2016-01-01

ABSTRACT Coagulase (Coa) and Efb, secreted Staphylococcus aureus proteins, are important virulence factors in staphylococcal infections. Coa interacts with fibrinogen (Fg) and induces the formation of fibrin(ogen) clots through activation of prothrombin. Efb attracts Fg to the bacterial surface and forms a shield to protect the bacteria from phagocytic clearance. This communication describes the use of an array of synthetic peptides to identify variants of a linear Fg binding motif present in Coa and Efb which are responsible for the Fg binding activities of these proteins. This motif represents the first Fg binding motif identified for any microbial protein. We initially located the Fg binding sites to Coa’s C-terminal disordered segment containing tandem repeats by using recombinant fragments of Coa in enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay-type binding experiments. Sequence analyses revealed that this Coa region contained shorter segments with sequences similar to the Fg binding segments in Efb. An alanine scanning approach allowed us to identify the residues in Coa and Efb that are critical for Fg binding and to define the Fg binding motifs in the two proteins. In these motifs, the residues required for Fg binding are largely conserved, and they therefore constitute variants of a common Fg binding motif which binds to Fg with high affinity. Defining a specific motif also allowed us to identify a functional Fg binding register for the Coa repeats that is different from the repeat unit previously proposed. PMID:26733070

17. Switch-like Transitions Insulate Network Motifs to Modularize Biological Networks.

PubMed

Atay, Oguzhan; Doncic, Andreas; Skotheim, Jan M

2016-08-01

Cellular decisions are made by complex networks that are difficult to analyze. Although it is common to analyze smaller sub-networks known as network motifs, it is unclear whether this is valid, because these motifs are embedded in complex larger networks. Here, we address the general question of modularity by examining the S. cerevisiae pheromone response. We demonstrate that the feedforward motif controlling the cell-cycle inhibitor Far1 is insulated from cell-cycle dynamics by the positive feedback switch that drives reentry to the cell cycle. Before cells switch on positive feedback, the feedforward motif model predicts the behavior of the larger network. Conversely, after the switch, the feedforward motif is dismantled and has no discernable effect on the cell cycle. When insulation is broken, the feedforward motif no longer predicts network behavior. This work illustrates how, despite the interconnectivity of networks, the activity of motifs can be insulated by switches that generate well-defined cellular states. PMID:27453443

18. A motif present in the main cytoplasmic loop of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors and catalases.

PubMed

Morgado-Valle, C; García-Colunga, J; Miledi, R; Díaz-Muñoz, M

2001-05-01

A motif containing five conserved amino acids (RXPXTH(X)14P) was detected in 111 proteins, including 82 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) subunits and 20 catalases. To explore possible functional roles of this motif in nAChRs two approaches were used: first, the motif sequences in nAChR subunits and catalases were analysed and compared; and, second, deletions in the rat alpha2 and beta4 nAChR subunits expressed in Xenopus oocytes were analysed. Compared to the three-dimensional structure of bovine hepatic catalase, structural coincidences were found in the motif of catalases and nAChRs. On the other hand, partial deletions of the motif in the alpha2 or beta4 subunits and injection of the mutants into oocytes was followed by a very weak expression of functional nAChRs; oocytes injected with alpha2 and beta4 subunits in which the entire motif had been deleted failed to elicit any acetylcholine currents. The results suggest that the motif may play a role in the activation of nAChRs. PMID:11370971

19. SVM2Motif—Reconstructing Overlapping DNA Sequence Motifs by Mimicking an SVM Predictor

PubMed Central

Vidovic, Marina M. -C.; Görnitz, Nico; Müller, Klaus-Robert; Rätsch, Gunnar; Kloft, Marius

2015-01-01

Identifying discriminative motifs underlying the functionality and evolution of organisms is a major challenge in computational biology. Machine learning approaches such as support vector machines (SVMs) achieve state-of-the-art performances in genomic discrimination tasks, but—due to its black-box character—motifs underlying its decision function are largely unknown. As a remedy, positional oligomer importance matrices (POIMs) allow us to visualize the significance of position-specific subsequences. Although being a major step towards the explanation of trained SVM models, they suffer from the fact that their size grows exponentially in the length of the motif, which renders their manual inspection feasible only for comparably small motif sizes, typically k ≤ 5. In this work, we extend the work on positional oligomer importance matrices, by presenting a new machine-learning methodology, entitled motifPOIM, to extract the truly relevant motifs—regardless of their length and complexity—underlying the predictions of a trained SVM model. Our framework thereby considers the motifs as free parameters in a probabilistic model, a task which can be phrased as a non-convex optimization problem. The exponential dependence of the POIM size on the oligomer length poses a major numerical challenge, which we address by an efficient optimization framework that allows us to find possibly overlapping motifs consisting of up to hundreds of nucleotides. We demonstrate the efficacy of our approach on a synthetic data set as well as a real-world human splice site data set. PMID:26690911

20. Recurrent motifs as resonant attractor states in the narrative field: a testable model of archetype.

PubMed

Goodwyn, Erik

2013-06-01

At the most basic level, archetypes represented Jung's attempt to explain the phenomenon of recurrent myths and folktale motifs (Jung 1956, 1959, para. 99). But the archetype remains controversial as an explanation of recurrent motifs, as the existence of recurrent motifs does not prove that archetypes exist. Thus, the challenge for contemporary archetype theory is not merely to demonstrate that recurrent motifs exist, since that is not disputed, but to demonstrate that archetypes exist and cause recurrent motifs. The present paper proposes a new model which is unlike others in that it postulates how the archetype creates resonant motifs. This model necessarily clarifies and adapts some of Jung's seminal ideas on archetype in order to provide a working framework grounded in contemporary practice and methodologies. For the first time, a model of archetype is proposed that can be validated on empirical, rather than theoretical grounds. This is achieved by linking the archetype to the hard data of recurrent motifs rather than academic trends in other fields. PMID:23750942

1. The consensus 5' splice site motif inhibits mRNA nuclear export.

PubMed

Lee, Eliza S; Akef, Abdalla; Mahadevan, Kohila; Palazzo, Alexander F

2015-01-01

In eukaryotes, mRNAs are synthesized in the nucleus and then exported to the cytoplasm where they are translated into proteins. We have mapped an element, which when present in the 3'terminal exon or in an unspliced mRNA, inhibits mRNA nuclear export. This element has the same sequence as the consensus 5'splice site motif that is used to define the start of introns. Previously it was shown that when this motif is retained in the mRNA, it causes defects in 3'cleavage and polyadenylation and promotes mRNA decay. Our new data indicates that this motif also inhibits nuclear export and promotes the targeting of transcripts to nuclear speckles, foci within the nucleus which have been linked to splicing. The motif, however, does not disrupt splicing or the recruitment of UAP56 or TAP/Nxf1 to the RNA, which are normally required for nuclear export. Genome wide analysis of human mRNAs, lncRNA and eRNAs indicates that this motif is depleted from naturally intronless mRNAs and eRNAs, but less so in lncRNAs. This motif is also depleted from the beginning and ends of the 3'terminal exons of spliced mRNAs, but less so for lncRNAs. Our data suggests that the presence of the 5'splice site motif in mature RNAs promotes their nuclear retention and may help to distinguish mRNAs from misprocessed transcripts and transcriptional noise.

2. Minimal motif peptide structure of metzincin clan zinc peptidases in micelles.

PubMed

Onoda, Akira; Suzuki, Takako; Ishizuka, Hiroaki; Sugiyama, Rumiko; Ariyasu, Shinya; Yamamura, Takeshi

2009-12-01

It is well known that the functions of metalloproteins generally originate from their metal-binding motifs. However, the intrinsic nature of individual motifs remains unknown, particularly the details about metal-binding effects on the folding of motifs; the converse is also unknown, although there is no doubt that the motif is the core of the reactivity for each metalloprotein. In this study, we focused our attention on the zinc-binding motif of the metzincin clan family, HEXXHXXGXXH; this family contains the general zinc-binding sequence His-Glu-Xaa-Xaa-His (HEXXH) and the extended GXXH region. We adopted the motif sequence of stromelysin-1 and investigated the folding properties of the Trp-labeled peptides WAHEIAHSLGLFHA (STR-W1), AWHEIAHSLGLFHA (STR-W2), AHEIAHSLGWFHA (STR-W11), and AHEIAHSLGLFHWA (STR-W14) in the presence and absence of zinc ions in hydrophobic micellar environments by circular dichroism (CD) measurements. We accessed successful incorporation of these zinc peptides into micelles using quenching of Trp fluorescence. Results of CD studies indicated that two of the Trp-incorporated peptides, STR-W1 and STR-W14, exhibited helical folding in the hydrophobic region of cetyltrimethylammonium chloride micelle. The NMR structural analysis of the apo STR-W14 revealed that the conformation in the C-terminus GXXH region significantly differred between the apo state in the micelle and the reported Zn-bound state of stromelysin-1 in crystal structures. The structural analyses of the qualitative Zn-binding properties of this motif peptide provide an interesting Zn-binding mechanism: the minimum consensus motif in the metzincin clan, a basic zinc-binding motif with an extended GXXH region, has the potential to serve as a preorganized Zn binding scaffold in a hydrophobic environment.

3. Miz-1 activates gene expression via a novel consensus DNA binding motif.

PubMed

Barrilleaux, Bonnie L; Burow, Dana; Lockwood, Sarah H; Yu, Abigail; Segal, David J; Knoepfler, Paul S

2014-01-01

The transcription factor Miz-1 can either activate or repress gene expression in concert with binding partners including the Myc oncoprotein. The genomic binding of Miz-1 includes both core promoters and more distal sites, but the preferred DNA binding motif of Miz-1 has been unclear. We used a high-throughput in vitro technique, Bind-n-Seq, to identify two Miz-1 consensus DNA binding motif sequences--ATCGGTAATC and ATCGAT (Mizm1 and Mizm2)--bound by full-length Miz-1 and its zinc finger domain, respectively. We validated these sequences directly as high affinity Miz-1 binding motifs. Competition assays using mutant probes indicated that the binding affinity of Miz-1 for Mizm1 and Mizm2 is highly sequence-specific. Miz-1 strongly activates gene expression through the motifs in a Myc-independent manner. MEME-ChIP analysis of Miz-1 ChIP-seq data in two different cell types reveals a long motif with a central core sequence highly similar to the Mizm1 motif identified by Bind-n-Seq, validating the in vivo relevance of the findings. Miz-1 ChIP-seq peaks containing the long motif are predominantly located outside of proximal promoter regions, in contrast to peaks without the motif, which are highly concentrated within 1.5 kb of the nearest transcription start site. Overall, our results indicate that Miz-1 may be directed in vivo to the novel motif sequences we have identified, where it can recruit its specific binding partners to control gene expression and ultimately regulate cell fate. PMID:24983942

4. Sensible method for updating motif instances in an increased biological network.

PubMed

Kim, W Y; Kurmar, S

2015-07-15

A network motif is defined as an over-represented subgraph pattern in a network. Network motif based techniques have been widely applied in analyses of biological networks such as transcription regulation networks (TRNs), protein-protein interaction networks (PPIs), and metabolic networks. The detection of network motifs involves the computationally expensive enumeration of subgraphs, NP-complete graph isomorphism testing, and significance testing through the generation of many random graphs to determine the statistical uniqueness of a given subgraph. These computational obstacles make network motif analysis unfeasible for many real-world applications. We observe that the fast growth of biotechnology has led to the rapid accretion of molecules (vertices) and interactions (edges) to existing biological network databases. Even with a small percentage of additions, revised networks can have a large number of differing motif instances. Currently, no existing algorithms recalculate motif instances in 'updated' networks in a practical manner. In this paper, we introduce a sensible method for efficiently recalculating motif instances by performing motif enumeration from only updated vertices and edges. Preliminary experimental results indicate that our method greatly reduces computational time by eliminating the repeated enumeration of overlapped subgraph instances detected in earlier versions of the network. The software program implementing this algorithm, defined as SUNMI (Sensible Update of Network Motif Instances), is currently a stand-alone java program and we plan to upgrade it as a web-interactive program that will be available through http://faculty.washington.edu/kimw6/research.htm in near future. Meanwhile it is recommended to contact authors to obtain the stand-alone SUNMI program. PMID:25869675

5. Identification of a putative nuclear export signal motif in human NANOG homeobox domain

SciTech Connect

Park, Sung-Won; Do, Hyun-Jin; Huh, Sun-Hyung; Sung, Boreum; Uhm, Sang-Jun; Song, Hyuk; Kim, Nam-Hyung; Kim, Jae-Hwan

2012-05-11

Highlights: Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer We found the putative nuclear export signal motif within human NANOG homeodomain. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Leucine-rich residues are important for human NANOG homeodomain nuclear export. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer CRM1-specific inhibitor LMB blocked the potent human NANOG NES-mediated nuclear export. -- Abstract: NANOG is a homeobox-containing transcription factor that plays an important role in pluripotent stem cells and tumorigenic cells. To understand how nuclear localization of human NANOG is regulated, the NANOG sequence was examined and a leucine-rich nuclear export signal (NES) motif ({sup 125}MQELSNILNL{sup 134}) was found in the homeodomain (HD). To functionally validate the putative NES motif, deletion and site-directed mutants were fused to an EGFP expression vector and transfected into COS-7 cells, and the localization of the proteins was examined. While hNANOG HD exclusively localized to the nucleus, a mutant with both NLSs deleted and only the putative NES motif contained (hNANOG HD-{Delta}NLSs) was predominantly cytoplasmic, as observed by nucleo/cytoplasmic fractionation and Western blot analysis as well as confocal microscopy. Furthermore, site-directed mutagenesis of the putative NES motif in a partial hNANOG HD only containing either one of the two NLS motifs led to localization in the nucleus, suggesting that the NES motif may play a functional role in nuclear export. Furthermore, CRM1-specific nuclear export inhibitor LMB blocked the hNANOG potent NES-mediated export, suggesting that the leucine-rich motif may function in CRM1-mediated nuclear export of hNANOG. Collectively, a NES motif is present in the hNANOG HD and may be functionally involved in CRM1-mediated nuclear export pathway.

6. ELM 2016--data update and new functionality of the eukaryotic linear motif resource.

PubMed

Dinkel, Holger; Van Roey, Kim; Michael, Sushama; Kumar, Manjeet; Uyar, Bora; Altenberg, Brigitte; Milchevskaya, Vladislava; Schneider, Melanie; Kühn, Helen; Behrendt, Annika; Dahl, Sophie Luise; Damerell, Victoria; Diebel, Sandra; Kalman, Sara; Klein, Steffen; Knudsen, Arne C; Mäder, Christina; Merrill, Sabina; Staudt, Angelina; Thiel, Vera; Welti, Lukas; Davey, Norman E; Diella, Francesca; Gibson, Toby J

2016-01-01

The Eukaryotic Linear Motif (ELM) resource (http://elm.eu.org) is a manually curated database of short linear motifs (SLiMs). In this update, we present the latest additions to this resource, along with more improvements to the web interface. ELM 2016 contains more than 240 different motif classes with over 2700 experimentally validated instances, manually curated from more than 2400 scientific publications. In addition, more data have been made available as individually searchable pages and are downloadable in various formats. PMID:26615199

7. ELM 2016—data update and new functionality of the eukaryotic linear motif resource

PubMed Central

Dinkel, Holger; Van Roey, Kim; Michael, Sushama; Kumar, Manjeet; Uyar, Bora; Altenberg, Brigitte; Milchevskaya, Vladislava; Schneider, Melanie; Kühn, Helen; Behrendt, Annika; Dahl, Sophie Luise; Damerell, Victoria; Diebel, Sandra; Kalman, Sara; Klein, Steffen; Knudsen, Arne C.; Mäder, Christina; Merrill, Sabina; Staudt, Angelina; Thiel, Vera; Welti, Lukas; Davey, Norman E.; Diella, Francesca; Gibson, Toby J.

2016-01-01

The Eukaryotic Linear Motif (ELM) resource (http://elm.eu.org) is a manually curated database of short linear motifs (SLiMs). In this update, we present the latest additions to this resource, along with more improvements to the web interface. ELM 2016 contains more than 240 different motif classes with over 2700 experimentally validated instances, manually curated from more than 2400 scientific publications. In addition, more data have been made available as individually searchable pages and are downloadable in various formats. PMID:26615199

8. SCANMOT: searching for similar sequences using a simultaneous scan of multiple sequence motifs.

PubMed

Chakrabarti, Saikat; Anand, A Prem; Bhardwaj, Nitin; Pugalenthi, Ganesan; Sowdhamini, R

2005-07-01

Establishment of similarities between proteins is very important for the study of the relationship between sequence, structure and function and for the analysis of evolutionary relationships. Motif-based search methods play a crucial role in establishing the connections between proteins that are particularly useful for distant relationships. This paper reports SCANMOT, a web-based server that searches for similarities between proteins by simultaneous matching of multiple motifs. SCANMOT searches for similar sequences in entire sequence databases using multiple conserved regions and utilizes inter-motif spacing as restraints. The SCANMOT server is available via http://www.ncbs.res.in/~faculty/mini/scanmot/scanmot.html.

9. Peptoid nanosheets exhibit a new secondary-structure motif

Mannige, Ranjan V.; Haxton, Thomas K.; Proulx, Caroline; Robertson, Ellen J.; Battigelli, Alessia; Butterfoss, Glenn L.; Zuckermann, Ronald N.; Whitelam, Stephen

2015-10-01

A promising route to the synthesis of protein-mimetic materials that are capable of complex functions, such as molecular recognition and catalysis, is provided by sequence-defined peptoid polymers--structural relatives of biologically occurring polypeptides. Peptoids, which are relatively non-toxic and resistant to degradation, can fold into defined structures through a combination of sequence-dependent interactions. However, the range of possible structures that are accessible to peptoids and other biological mimetics is unknown, and our ability to design protein-like architectures from these polymer classes is limited. Here we use molecular-dynamics simulations, together with scattering and microscopy data, to determine the atomic-resolution structure of the recently discovered peptoid nanosheet, an ordered supramolecular assembly that extends macroscopically in only two dimensions. Our simulations show that nanosheets are structurally and dynamically heterogeneous, can be formed only from peptoids of certain lengths, and are potentially porous to water and ions. Moreover, their formation is enabled by the peptoids' adoption of a secondary structure that is not seen in the natural world. This structure, a zigzag pattern that we call a Σ(sigma')-strand, results from the ability of adjacent backbone monomers to adopt opposed rotational states, thereby allowing the backbone to remain linear and untwisted. Linear backbones tiled in a brick-like way form an extended two-dimensional nanostructure, the Σ-sheet. The binary rotational-state motif of the Σ-strand is not seen in regular protein structures, which are usually built from one type of rotational state. We also show that the concept of building regular structures from multiple rotational states can be generalized beyond the peptoid nanosheet system.

10. Elongated Polyproline Motifs Facilitate Enamel Evolution through Matrix Subunit Compaction

PubMed Central

Luan, Xianghong; Dangaria, Smit; Walker, Cameron; Allen, Michael; Kulkarni, Ashok; Gibson, Carolyn; Braatz, Richard; Liao, Xiubei; Diekwisch, Thomas G. H.

2009-01-01

Vertebrate body designs rely on hydroxyapatite as the principal mineral component of relatively light-weight, articulated endoskeletons and sophisticated tooth-bearing jaws, facilitating rapid movement and efficient predation. Biological mineralization and skeletal growth are frequently accomplished through proteins containing polyproline repeat elements. Through their well-defined yet mobile and flexible structure polyproline-rich proteins control mineral shape and contribute many other biological functions including Alzheimer's amyloid aggregation and prolamine plant storage. In the present study we have hypothesized that polyproline repeat proteins exert their control over biological events such as mineral growth, plaque aggregation, or viscous adhesion by altering the length of their central repeat domain, resulting in dramatic changes in supramolecular assembly dimensions. In order to test our hypothesis, we have used the vertebrate mineralization protein amelogenin as an exemplar and determined the biological effect of the four-fold increased polyproline tandem repeat length in the amphibian/mammalian transition. To study the effect of polyproline repeat length on matrix assembly, protein structure, and apatite crystal growth, we have measured supramolecular assembly dimensions in various vertebrates using atomic force microscopy, tested the effect of protein assemblies on crystal growth by electron microscopy, generated a transgenic mouse model to examine the effect of an abbreviated polyproline sequence on crystal growth, and determined the structure of polyproline repeat elements using 3D NMR. Our study shows that an increase in PXX/PXQ tandem repeat motif length results (i) in a compaction of protein matrix subunit dimensions, (ii) reduced conformational variability, (iii) an increase in polyproline II helices, and (iv) promotion of apatite crystal length. Together, these findings establish a direct relationship between polyproline tandem repeat fragment

11. Ribozyme motif structure mapped using random recombination and selection

PubMed Central

WANG, QING S.; UNRAU, PETER J.

2005-01-01

Isolating the core functional elements of an RNA is normally performed during the characterization of a new RNA in order to simplify further biochemical analysis. The removal of extraneous sequence is challenging and can lead to biases that result from the incomplete sampling of deletion variants. An impartial solution to this problem is to construct a library containing a large number of deletion constructs and to select functional RNA isolates that are at least as efficient as their full-length progenitors. Here, we use nonhomologous recombination and selection to isolate the catalytic core of a pyrimidine nucleotide synthase ribozyme. A variable-length pool of ~108 recombinant molecules that included deletions, inversions, and translocations of a 271-nucleotide-long ribozyme isolate was constructed by digesting and randomly religating its DNA genome. In vitro selection for functional ribozymes was then performed in a size-dependent and a size-independent manner. The final pools had nearly equivalent catalytic rates even though their length distributions were completely different, indicating that a diverse range of deletion constructs were functionally active. Four short sequence islands, requiring as little as 81 nt of sequence, were found within all of the truncated ribozymes and could be folded into a secondary structure consisting of three helix–loops. Our findings suggest that nonhomologous recombination is a highly efficient way to isolate a ribozyme’s core motif and could prove to be a useful method for evolving new ribozyme functions from pre-existing sequences in a manner that may have played an important role early in evolution. PMID:15703441

12. Combining Microarray and Genomic Data to Predict DNA Binding Motifs

SciTech Connect

Mao, Linyong; Mackenzie, Ronald C.; Roh, J. H.; Eraso, Jesus M.; Kaplan, Samuel; Resat, Haluk

2005-10-01

The ability to detect regulatory elements within genome sequences is important in understanding how gene expression is controlled in biological systems. In this work, we combine microarray data analysis with genome sequence analysis to predict DNA sequences in the photosynthetic bacterium Rhodobacter sphaeroides that bind the regulators PrrA, PpsR and FnrL. These predictions were made by using hierarchical clustering to detect genes that share similar expression patterns. The DNA sequences upstream of these genes were then searched for possible transcription factor recognition motifs that may be involved in their co-regulation. The approach used promises to be widely applicable for the prediction of cis-acting DNA binding elements. Using this method we were independently able to detect and extend the previously described consensus sequences that have been suggested to bind FnrL and PpsR. In addition we have predicted sequences that may be recognized by the global regulator PrrA. Our results support the earlier suggestions that the DNA binding sequence of PrrA may have a variable sized gap between its conserved block elements. Using the predicted DNA binding sequences, we have performed a whole genome scale analysis to determine the relative importance of the interplay between these three regulators PpsR, FnrL and PrrA. Results of this analysis showed that, compared to the regulation by PpsR and FnrL, a much larger number of genes are candidates to be regulated by PrrA. Our study demonstrates by example that integration of multiple data types can be a powerful approach for inferring transcriptional regulatory patterns in microbial systems, and it allowed us to detect the photosynthesis related regulatory patterns in R. sphaeroides.

13. The GTP binding motif: variations on a theme.

PubMed

Kjeldgaard, M; Nyborg, J; Clark, B F

1996-10-01

GTP binding proteins (G-proteins) have wide-ranging functions in biology, being involved in cell proliferation, signal transduction, protein synthesis, and protein targeting. Common to their functioning is that they are active in the GTP-bound form and inactive in the GDP-bound form. The protein synthesis elongation factor EF-Tu was the first G-protein whose nucleotide binding domain was solved structurally by X-ray crystallography to yield a structural definition of the GDP-bound form, but a still increasing number of new structures of G-proteins are appearing in the literature, in both GDP and GTP bound forms. A common structural core for nucleotide binding is present in all these structures, and this core has long been known to include common consensus sequence elements involved in binding of the nucleotide. Nevertheless, subtle changes in the common sequences reflect functional differences. Therefore, it becomes increasingly important to focus on how these differences are reflected in the structures, and how these structural differences are related to function. The aim of this review is to describe to what extent this structural motif for GDP/GTP binding is common to other known structures of this class of proteins. We first describe the common structural core of the G-proteins. Next, examples are based on information available on the Ras protein superfamily, the targeting protein ARF, elongation factors EF-Tu and EF-G, and the heterotrimeric G-proteins. Finally, we discuss the important structures of complexes between GTP binding proteins and their substrates that have appeared in the literature recently.

14. Single-base pair differences in a shared motif determine differential Rhodopsin expression.

PubMed

Rister, Jens; Razzaq, Ansa; Boodram, Pamela; Desai, Nisha; Tsanis, Cleopatra; Chen, Hongtao; Jukam, David; Desplan, Claude

2015-12-01

The final identity and functional properties of a neuron are specified by terminal differentiation genes, which are controlled by specific motifs in compact regulatory regions. To determine how these sequences integrate inputs from transcription factors that specify cell types, we compared the regulatory mechanism of Drosophila Rhodopsin genes that are expressed in subsets of photoreceptors to that of phototransduction genes that are expressed broadly, in all photoreceptors. Both sets of genes share an 11-base pair (bp) activator motif. Broadly expressed genes contain a palindromic version that mediates expression in all photoreceptors. In contrast, each Rhodopsin exhibits characteristic single-bp substitutions that break the symmetry of the palindrome and generate activator or repressor motifs critical for restricting expression to photoreceptor subsets. Sensory neuron subtypes can therefore evolve through single-bp changes in short regulatory motifs, allowing the discrimination of a wide spectrum of stimuli.

15. Multi-scale modularity and motif distributional effect in metabolic networks.

PubMed

Gao, Shang; Chen, Alan; Rahmani, Ali; Zeng, Jia; Tan, Mehmet; Alhajj, Reda; Rokne, Jon; Demetrick, Douglas; Wei, Xiaohui

2016-01-01

Metabolism is a set of fundamental processes that play important roles in a plethora of biological and medical contexts. It is understood that the topological information of reconstructed metabolic networks, such as modular organization, has crucial implications on biological functions. Recent interpretations of modularity in network settings provide a view of multiple network partitions induced by different resolution parameters. Here we ask the question: How do multiple network partitions affect the organization of metabolic networks? Since network motifs are often interpreted as the super families of evolved units, we further investigate their impact under multiple network partitions and investigate how the distribution of network motifs influences the organization of metabolic networks. We studied Homo sapiens, Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Escherichia coli metabolic networks; we analyzed the relationship between different community structures and motif distribution patterns. Further, we quantified the degree to which motifs participate in the modular organization of metabolic networks.

16. Single base pair differences in a shared motif determine differential Rhodopsin expression

PubMed Central

Rister, Jens; Razzaq, Ansa; Boodram, Pamela; Desai, Nisha; Tsanis, Cleopatra; Chen, Hongtao; Jukam, David; Desplan, Claude

2016-01-01

The final identity and functional properties of a neuron are specified by terminal differentiation genes, which are controlled by specific motifs in compact regulatory regions. To determine how these sequences integrate inputs from transcription factors that specify cell types, we compared the regulatory mechanism of Drosophila Rhodopsin genes that are expressed in subsets of photoreceptors to that of phototransduction genes that are expressed broadly, in all photoreceptors. Both sets of genes share an 11bp activator motif. Broadly expressed genes contain a palindromic version that mediates expression in all photoreceptors. In contrast, each Rhodopsin exhibits unique single bp substitutions that break the symmetry of the palindrome and generate activator or repressor motifs critical for restricting expression to photoreceptor subsets. Novel sensory neuron subtypes can therefore evolve through single base pair changes in short regulatory motifs, allowing the discrimination of a wide spectrum of stimuli. PMID:26785491

17. Structural characterization of a capping protein interaction motif defines a family of actin filament regulators

PubMed Central

Hernandez-Valladares, Maria; Kim, Taekyung; Kannan, Balakrishnan; Tung, Alvin; Aguda, Adeleke H; Larsson, Mårten; Cooper, John A; Robinson, Robert C

2011-01-01

Capping protein (CP) regulates actin dynamics by binding the barbed ends of actin filaments. Removal of CP may be one means to harness actin polymerization for processes such as cell movement and endocytosis. Here we structurally and biochemically investigated a CP interaction (CPI) motif present in the otherwise unrelated proteins CARMIL and CD2AP. The CPI motif wraps around the stalk of the mushroom-shaped CP at a site distant from the actin-binding interface, which lies on the top of the mushroom cap. We propose that the CPI motif may act as an allosteric modulator, restricting CP to a low-affinity, filament-binding conformation. Structure-based sequence alignments extend the CPI motif–containing family to include CIN85, CKIP-1, CapZIP and a relatively uncharacterized protein, WASHCAP (FAM21). Peptides comprising these CPI motifs are able to inhibit CP and to uncap CP-bound actin filaments. PMID:20357771

18. Circular code motifs in transfer and 16S ribosomal RNAs: a possible translation code in genes.

PubMed

Michel, Christian J

2012-04-01

In 1996, a common trinucleotide circular code, called X, is identified in genes of eukaryotes and prokaryotes (Arquès and Michel, 1996). This circular code X is a set of 20 trinucleotides allowing the reading frames in genes to be retrieved locally, i.e. anywhere in genes and in particular without start codons. This reading frame retrieval needs a window length l of 12 nucleotides (l ≥ 12). With a window length strictly less than 12 nucleotides (l < 12), some words of X, called ambiguous words, are found in the shifted frames (the reading frame shifted by one or two nucleotides) preventing the reading frame in genes to be retrieved. Since 1996, these ambiguous words of X were never studied. In the first part of this paper, we identify all the ambiguous words of the common trinucleotide circular code X. With a length l varying from 1 to 11 nucleotides, the type and the occurrence number (multiplicity) of ambiguous words of X are given in each shifted frame. Maximal ambiguous words of X, words which are not factors of another ambiguous words, are also determined. Two probability definitions based on these results show that the common trinucleotide circular code X retrieves the reading frame in genes with a probability of about 90% with a window length of 6 nucleotides, and a probability of 99.9% with a window length of 9 nucleotides (100% with a window length of 12 nucleotides, by definition of a circular code). In the second part of this paper, we identify X circular code motifs (shortly X motifs) in transfer RNA and 16S ribosomal RNA: a tRNA X motif of 26 nucleotides including the anticodon stem-loop and seven 16S rRNA X motifs of length greater or equal to 15 nucleotides. Window lengths of reading frame retrieval with each trinucleotide of these X motifs are also determined. Thanks to the crystal structure 3I8G (Jenner et al., 2010), a 3D visualization of X motifs in the ribosome shows several spatial configurations involving mRNA X motifs, A-tRNA and E-tRNA X

19. Excluded volume effects on the kinetic assembling of a structural motif for RNA catalysis

Fernández, Ariel

1991-09-01

We establish the role of excluded volume effects on the loss of conformational entropy due to pseudoknot formation in RNA. This pseudoknot appears to be the structural motif responsible for shaping the splicing site of certain noncoding RNA transcriptional products. Focusing on the illustrative example of the YC4 intron, we show that the emergence of this motif is kinetically driven and prevails over competing catalytically inert secondary structure due to excluded volume effects which favor the correlation of interacting intramolecular loops.

20. Computational discovery of cis-regulatory modules in Drosophila without prior knowledge of motifs

PubMed Central

Ivan, Andra; Halfon, Marc S; Sinha, Saurabh

2008-01-01

We consider the problem of predicting cis-regulatory modules without knowledge of motifs. We formulate this problem in a pragmatic setting, and create over 30 new data sets, using Drosophila modules, to use as a 'benchmark'. We propose two new methods for the problem, and evaluate these, as well as two existing methods, on our benchmark. We find that the challenge of predicting cis-regulatory modules ab initio, without any input of relevant motifs, is a realizable goal. PMID:18226245

1. A novel approach to identifying regulatory motifs in distantly related genomes

PubMed Central

Van Hellemont, Ruth; Monsieurs, Pieter; Thijs, Gert; De Moor, Bart; Van de Peer, Yves; Marchal, Kathleen

2005-01-01

Although proven successful in the identification of regulatory motifs, phylogenetic footprinting methods still show some shortcomings. To assess these difficulties, most apparent when applying phylogenetic footprinting to distantly related organisms, we developed a two-step procedure that combines the advantages of sequence alignment and motif detection approaches. The results on well-studied benchmark datasets indicate that the presented method outperforms other methods when the sequences become either too long or too heterogeneous in size. PMID:16420672

2. CytoKavosh: a cytoscape plug-in for finding network motifs in large biological networks.

PubMed

2012-01-01

Network motifs are small connected sub-graphs that have recently gathered much attention to discover structural behaviors of large and complex networks. Finding motifs with any size is one of the most important problems in complex and large networks. It needs fast and reliable algorithms and tools for achieving this purpose. CytoKavosh is one of the best choices for finding motifs with any given size in any complex network. It relies on a fast algorithm, Kavosh, which makes it faster than other existing tools. Kavosh algorithm applies some well known algorithmic features and includes tricky aspects, which make it an efficient algorithm in this field. CytoKavosh is a Cytoscape plug-in which supports us in finding motifs of given size in a network that is formerly loaded into the Cytoscape work-space (directed or undirected). High performance of CytoKavosh is achieved by dynamically linking highly optimized functions of Kavosh's C++ to the Cytoscape Java program, which makes this plug-in suitable for analyzing large biological networks. Some significant attributes of CytoKavosh is efficiency in time usage and memory and having no limitation related to the implementation in motif size. CytoKavosh is implemented in a visual environment Cytoscape that is convenient for the users to interact and create visual options to analyze the structural behavior of a network. This plug-in can work on any given network and is very simple to use and generates graphical results of discovered motifs with any required details. There is no specific Cytoscape plug-in, specific for finding the network motifs, based on original concept. So, we have introduced for the first time, CytoKavosh as the first plug-in, and we hope that this plug-in can be improved to cover other options to make it the best motif-analyzing tool.

3. Three distinct motifs within the C-terminus of acid-sensing ion channel 1a regulate its surface trafficking.

PubMed

Jing, L; Chu, X-P; Zha, X-M

2013-09-01

Various protein motifs play a key role in regulating protein biogenesis and trafficking. Here, we discovered that three distinct motifs regulate the trafficking of acid-sensing ion channel 1a (ASIC1a), the primary neuronal proton receptor which plays critical roles in neurological diseases including stroke, multiple sclerosis and seizures. Mutating the PDZ binding motif of ASIC1a increased its surface expression and current density. In contrast, mutating either a RRGK motif or a KEAKR motif reduced ASIC1a surface expression and acid-activated current density. Mutating or deleting the RRGK motif also reduced pH sensitivity and the rate of desensitization of ASIC1a. These changes were likely due to a change in ASIC1a biogenesis; mutating either the RRGK or KEAKR motif reduced N-glycosylation of ASIC1a while mutating the PDZ binding motif had the opposite effect. Our results demonstrate that these C-terminal motifs are important for ASIC1a trafficking and channel function. In addition, in contrast to multiple previous studies, which all show that K/R containing motifs lead to endoplasmic reticulum (ER) retention, our findings indicate that these motifs can also be required for efficient trafficking.

4. A robust elicitation algorithm for discovering DNA motifs using fuzzy self-organizing maps.

PubMed

Wang, Dianhui; Tapan, Sarwar

2013-10-01

It is important to identify DNA motifs in promoter regions to understand the mechanism of gene regulation. Computational approaches for finding DNA motifs are well recognized as useful tools to biologists, which greatly help in saving experimental time and cost in wet laboratories. Self-organizing maps (SOMs), as a powerful clustering tool, have demonstrated good potential for problem solving. However, the current SOM-based motif discovery algorithms unfairly treat data samples lying around the cluster boundaries by assigning them to one of the nodes, which may result in unreliable system performance. This paper aims to develop a robust framework for discovering DNA motifs, where fuzzy SOMs, with an integration of fuzzy c-means membership functions and a standard batch-learning scheme, are employed to extract putative motifs with varying length in a recursive manner. Experimental results on eight real datasets show that our proposed algorithm outperforms the other searching tools such as SOMBRERO, SOMEA, MEME, AlignACE, and WEEDER in terms of the F-measure and algorithm reliability. It is observed that a remarkable 24.6% improvement can be achieved compared to the state-of-the-art SOMBRERO. Furthermore, our algorithm can produce a 20% and 6.6% improvement over SOMBRERO and SOMEA, respectively, in finding multiple motifs on five artificial datasets. PMID:24808603

5. Discriminative motif discovery via simulated evolution and random under-sampling.

PubMed

Song, Tao; Gu, Hong

2014-01-01

Conserved motifs in biological sequences are closely related to their structure and functions. Recently, discriminative motif discovery methods have attracted more and more attention. However, little attention has been devoted to the data imbalance problem, which is one of the main reasons affecting the performance of the discriminative models. In this article, a simulated evolution method is applied to solve the multi-class imbalance problem at the stage of data preprocessing, and at the stage of Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) training, a random under-sampling method is introduced for the imbalance between the positive and negative datasets. It is shown that, in the task of discovering targeting motifs of nine subcellular compartments, the motifs found by our method are more conserved than the methods without considering data imbalance problem and recover the most known targeting motifs from Minimotif Miner and InterPro. Meanwhile, we use the found motifs to predict protein subcellular localization and achieve higher prediction precision and recall for the minority classes.

6. Identification of disease-specific motifs in the antibody specificity repertoire via next-generation sequencing.

PubMed

Pantazes, Robert J; Reifert, Jack; Bozekowski, Joel; Ibsen, Kelly N; Murray, Joseph A; Daugherty, Patrick S

2016-01-01

Disease-specific antibodies can serve as highly effective biomarkers but have been identified for only a relatively small number of autoimmune diseases. A method was developed to identify disease-specific binding motifs through integration of bacterial display peptide library screening, next-generation sequencing (NGS) and computational analysis. Antibody specificity repertoires were determined by identifying bound peptide library members for each specimen using cell sorting and performing NGS. A computational algorithm, termed Identifying Motifs Using Next- generation sequencing Experiments (IMUNE), was developed and applied to discover disease- and healthy control-specific motifs. IMUNE performs comprehensive pattern searches, identifies patterns statistically enriched in the disease or control groups and clusters the patterns to generate motifs. Using celiac disease sera as a discovery set, IMUNE identified a consensus motif (QPEQPF[PS]E) with high diagnostic sensitivity and specificity in a validation sera set, in addition to novel motifs. Peptide display and sequencing (Display-Seq) coupled with IMUNE analysis may thus be useful to characterize antibody repertoires and identify disease-specific antibody epitopes and biomarkers. PMID:27481573

7. Creation of Hybrid Nanorods From Sequences of Natural Trimeric Fibrous Proteins Using the Fibritin Trimerization Motif

Papanikolopoulou, Katerina; van Raaij, Mark J.; Mitraki, Anna

Stable, artificial fibrous proteins that can be functionalized open new avenues in fields such as bionanomaterials design and fiber engineering. An important source of inspiration for the creation of such proteins are natural fibrous proteins such as collagen, elastin, insect silks, and fibers from phages and viruses. The fibrous parts of this last class of proteins usually adopt trimeric, β-stranded structural folds and are appended to globular, receptor-binding domains. It has been recently shown that the globular domains are essential for correct folding and trimerization and can be successfully substituted by a very small (27-amino acid) trimerization motif from phage T4 fibritin. The hybrid proteins are correctly folded nanorods that can withstand extreme conditions. When the fibrous part derives from the adenovirus fiber shaft, different tissue-targeting specificities can be engineered into the hybrid proteins, which therefore can be used as gene therapy vectors. The integration of such stable nanorods in devices is also a big challenge in the field of biomechanical design. The fibritin foldon domain is a versatile trimerization motif and can be combined with a variety of fibrous motifs, such as coiled-coil, collagenous, and triple β-stranded motifs, provided the appropriate linkers are used. The combination of different motifs within the same fibrous molecule to create stable rods with multiple functions can even be envisioned. We provide a comprehensive overview of the experimental procedures used for designing, creating, and characterizing hybrid fibrous nanorods using the fibritin trimerization motif.

8. RNA Bricks--a database of RNA 3D motifs and their interactions.

PubMed

Chojnowski, Grzegorz; Walen, Tomasz; Bujnicki, Janusz M

2014-01-01

The RNA Bricks database (http://iimcb.genesilico.pl/rnabricks), stores information about recurrent RNA 3D motifs and their interactions, found in experimentally determined RNA structures and in RNA-protein complexes. In contrast to other similar tools (RNA 3D Motif Atlas, RNA Frabase, Rloom) RNA motifs, i.e. 'RNA bricks' are presented in the molecular environment, in which they were determined, including RNA, protein, metal ions, water molecules and ligands. All nucleotide residues in RNA bricks are annotated with structural quality scores that describe real-space correlation coefficients with the electron density data (if available), backbone geometry and possible steric conflicts, which can be used to identify poorly modeled residues. The database is also equipped with an algorithm for 3D motif search and comparison. The algorithm compares spatial positions of backbone atoms of the user-provided query structure and of stored RNA motifs, without relying on sequence or secondary structure information. This enables the identification of local structural similarities among evolutionarily related and unrelated RNA molecules. Besides, the search utility enables searching 'RNA bricks' according to sequence similarity, and makes it possible to identify motifs with modified ribonucleotide residues at specific positions.

9. Identifying DNA-binding proteins using structural motifs and the electrostatic potential.

PubMed

Shanahan, Hugh P; Garcia, Mario A; Jones, Susan; Thornton, Janet M

2004-01-01

Robust methods to detect DNA-binding proteins from structures of unknown function are important for structural biology. This paper describes a method for identifying such proteins that (i) have a solvent accessible structural motif necessary for DNA-binding and (ii) a positive electrostatic potential in the region of the binding region. We focus on three structural motifs: helix-turn-helix (HTH), helix-hairpin-helix (HhH) and helix-loop-helix (HLH). We find that the combination of these variables detect 78% of proteins with an HTH motif, which is a substantial improvement over previous work based purely on structural templates and is comparable to more complex methods of identifying DNA-binding proteins. Similar true positive fractions are achieved for the HhH and HLH motifs. We see evidence of wide evolutionary diversity for DNA-binding proteins with an HTH motif, and much smaller diversity for those with an HhH or HLH motif. PMID:15356290

10. Discriminative Motif Discovery via Simulated Evolution and Random Under-Sampling

PubMed Central

Song, Tao; Gu, Hong

2014-01-01

Conserved motifs in biological sequences are closely related to their structure and functions. Recently, discriminative motif discovery methods have attracted more and more attention. However, little attention has been devoted to the data imbalance problem, which is one of the main reasons affecting the performance of the discriminative models. In this article, a simulated evolution method is applied to solve the multi-class imbalance problem at the stage of data preprocessing, and at the stage of Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) training, a random under-sampling method is introduced for the imbalance between the positive and negative datasets. It is shown that, in the task of discovering targeting motifs of nine subcellular compartments, the motifs found by our method are more conserved than the methods without considering data imbalance problem and recover the most known targeting motifs from Minimotif Miner and InterPro. Meanwhile, we use the found motifs to predict protein subcellular localization and achieve higher prediction precision and recall for the minority classes. PMID:24551063

11. Conservation defines functional motifs in the squint/nodal-related 1 RNA dorsal localization element

PubMed Central

Gilligan, Patrick C.; Kumari, Pooja; Lim, Shimin; Cheong, Albert; Chang, Alex; Sampath, Karuna

2011-01-01

RNA localization is emerging as a general principle of sub-cellular protein localization and cellular organization. However, the sequence and structural requirements in many RNA localization elements remain poorly understood. Whereas transcription factor-binding sites in DNA can be recognized as short degenerate motifs, and consensus binding sites readily inferred, protein-binding sites in RNA often contain structural features, and can be difficult to infer. We previously showed that zebrafish squint/nodal-related 1 (sqt/ndr1) RNA localizes to the future dorsal side of the embryo. Interestingly, mammalian nodal RNA can also localize to dorsal when injected into zebrafish embryos, suggesting that the sequence motif(s) may be conserved, even though the fish and mammal UTRs cannot be aligned. To define potential sequence and structural features, we obtained ndr1 3′-UTR sequences from approximately 50 fishes that are closely, or distantly, related to zebrafish, for high-resolution phylogenetic footprinting. We identify conserved sequence and structural motifs within the zebrafish/carp family and catfish. We find that two novel motifs, a single-stranded AGCAC motif and a small stem-loop, are required for efficient sqt RNA localization. These findings show that comparative sequencing in the zebrafish/carp family is an efficient approach for identifying weak consensus binding sites for RNA regulatory proteins. PMID:21149265

12. A systematic approach to identify functional motifs within vertebrate developmental enhancers

PubMed Central

Li, Qiang; Ritter, Deborah; Yang, Nan; Dong, Zhiqiang; Li, Hao; Chuang, Jeffrey H.; Guo, Su

2012-01-01

Uncovering the cis-regulatory logic of developmental enhancers is critical to understanding the role of non-coding DNA in development. However, it is cumbersome to identify functional motifs within enhancers, and thus few vertebrate enhancers have their core functional motifs revealed. Here we report a combined experimental and computational approach for discovering regulatory motifs in developmental enhancers. Making use of the zebrafish gene expression database, we computationally identified conserved non-coding elements (CNEs) likely to have a desired tissue-specificity based on the expression of nearby genes. Through a high throughput and robust enhancer assay, we tested the activity of ~100 such CNEs and efficiently uncovered developmental enhancers with desired spatial and temporal expression patterns in the zebrafish brain. Application of de novo motif prediction algorithms on a group of forebrain enhancers identified five top-ranked motifs, all of which were experimentally validated as critical for forebrain enhancer activity. These results demonstrate a systematic approach to discover important regulatory motifs in vertebrate developmental enhancers. Moreover, this dataset provides a useful resource for further dissection of vertebrate brain development and function. PMID:19850031

13. Identification of disease-specific motifs in the antibody specificity repertoire via next-generation sequencing

PubMed Central

Pantazes, Robert J.; Reifert, Jack; Bozekowski, Joel; Ibsen, Kelly N.; Murray, Joseph A.; Daugherty, Patrick S.

2016-01-01

Disease-specific antibodies can serve as highly effective biomarkers but have been identified for only a relatively small number of autoimmune diseases. A method was developed to identify disease-specific binding motifs through integration of bacterial display peptide library screening, next-generation sequencing (NGS) and computational analysis. Antibody specificity repertoires were determined by identifying bound peptide library members for each specimen using cell sorting and performing NGS. A computational algorithm, termed Identifying Motifs Using Next- generation sequencing Experiments (IMUNE), was developed and applied to discover disease- and healthy control-specific motifs. IMUNE performs comprehensive pattern searches, identifies patterns statistically enriched in the disease or control groups and clusters the patterns to generate motifs. Using celiac disease sera as a discovery set, IMUNE identified a consensus motif (QPEQPF[PS]E) with high diagnostic sensitivity and specificity in a validation sera set, in addition to novel motifs. Peptide display and sequencing (Display-Seq) coupled with IMUNE analysis may thus be useful to characterize antibody repertoires and identify disease-specific antibody epitopes and biomarkers. PMID:27481573

14. Ordered cyclic motifs contribute to dynamic stability in biological and engineered networks.

PubMed

Ma'ayan, Avi; Cecchi, Guillermo A; Wagner, John; Rao, A Ravi; Iyengar, Ravi; Stolovitzky, Gustavo

2008-12-01

Representation and analysis of complex biological and engineered systems as directed networks is useful for understanding their global structure/function organization. Enrichment of network motifs, which are over-represented subgraphs in real networks, can be used for topological analysis. Because counting network motifs is computationally expensive, only characterization of 3- to 5-node motifs has been previously reported. In this study we used a supercomputer to analyze cyclic motifs made of 3-20 nodes for 6 biological and 3 technological networks. Using tools from statistical physics, we developed a theoretical framework for characterizing the ensemble of cyclic motifs in real networks. We have identified a generic property of real complex networks, antiferromagnetic organization, which is characterized by minimal directional coherence of edges along cyclic subgraphs, such that consecutive links tend to have opposing direction. As a consequence, we find that the lack of directional coherence in cyclic motifs leads to depletion in feedback loops, where the number of nodes affected by feedback loops appears to be at a local minimum compared with surrogate shuffled networks. This topology provides more dynamic stability in large networks.

15. Chromatin-driven de novo discovery of DNA binding motifs in the human malaria parasite

PubMed Central

2011-01-01

Background Despite extensive efforts to discover transcription factors and their binding sites in the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum, only a few transcription factor binding motifs have been experimentally validated to date. As a consequence, gene regulation in P. falciparum is still poorly understood. There is now evidence that the chromatin architecture plays an important role in transcriptional control in malaria. Results We propose a methodology for discovering cis-regulatory elements that uses for the first time exclusively dynamic chromatin remodeling data. Our method employs nucleosome positioning data collected at seven time points during the erythrocytic cycle of P. falciparum to discover putative DNA binding motifs and their transcription factor binding sites along with their associated clusters of target genes. Our approach results in 129 putative binding motifs within the promoter region of known genes. About 75% of those are novel, the remaining being highly similar to experimentally validated binding motifs. About half of the binding motifs reported show statistically significant enrichment in functional gene sets and strong positional bias in the promoter region. Conclusion Experimental results establish the principle that dynamic chromatin remodeling data can be used in lieu of gene expression data to discover binding motifs and their transcription factor binding sites. Our approach can be applied using only dynamic nucleosome positioning data, independent from any knowledge of gene function or expression. PMID:22165844

16. Identification of Biomarker and Co-Regulatory Motifs in Lung Adenocarcinoma Based on Differential Interactions

PubMed Central

Chang, Zhiqiang; Li, Kening; Zhang, Rui; Zhou, Yuanshuai; Qiu, Fujun; Han, Xiaole; Xu, Yan

2015-01-01

Changes in intermolecular interactions (differential interactions) may influence the progression of cancer. Specific genes and their regulatory networks may be more closely associated with cancer when taking their transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels and dynamic and static interactions into account simultaneously. In this paper, a differential interaction analysis was performed to detect lung adenocarcinoma-related genes. Furthermore, a miRNA-TF (transcription factor) synergistic regulation network was constructed to identify three kinds of co-regulated motifs, namely, triplet, crosstalk and joint. Not only were the known cancer-related miRNAs and TFs (let-7, miR-15a, miR-17, TP53, ETS1, and so on) were detected in the motifs, but also the miR-15, let-7 and miR-17 families showed a tendency to regulate the triplet, crosstalk and joint motifs, respectively. Moreover, several biological functions (i.e., cell cycle, signaling pathways and hemopoiesis) associated with the three motifs were found to be frequently targeted by the drugs for lung adenocarcinoma. Specifically, the two 4-node motifs (crosstalk and joint) based on co-expression and interaction had a closer relationship to lung adenocarcinoma, and so further research was performed on them. A 10-gene biomarker (UBC, SRC, SP1, MYC, STAT3, JUN, NR3C1, RB1, GRB2 and MAPK1) was selected from the joint motif, and a survival analysis indicated its significant association with survival. Among the ten genes, JUN, NR3C1 and GRB2 are our newly detected candidate lung adenocarcinoma-related genes. The genes, regulators and regulatory motifs detected in this work will provide potential drug targets and new strategies for individual therapy. PMID:26402252

17. Structural basis for the binding of tryptophan-based motifs by δ-COP

PubMed Central

Suckling, Richard J.; Poon, Pak Phi; Travis, Sophie M.; Majoul, Irina V.; Hughson, Frederick M.; Evans, Philip R.; Duden, Rainer; Owen, David J.

2015-01-01

Coatomer consists of two subcomplexes: the membrane-targeting, ADP ribosylation factor 1 (Arf1):GTP-binding βγδζ-COP F-subcomplex, which is related to the adaptor protein (AP) clathrin adaptors, and the cargo-binding αβ’ε-COP B-subcomplex. We present the structure of the C-terminal μ-homology domain of the yeast δ-COP subunit in complex with the WxW motif from its binding partner, the endoplasmic reticulum-localized Dsl1 tether. The motif binds at a site distinct from that used by the homologous AP μ subunits to bind YxxΦ cargo motifs with its two tryptophan residues sitting in compatible pockets. We also show that the Saccharomyces cerevisiae Arf GTPase-activating protein (GAP) homolog Gcs1p uses a related WxxF motif at its extreme C terminus to bind to δ-COP at the same site in the same way. Mutations designed on the basis of the structure in conjunction with isothermal titration calorimetry confirm the mode of binding and show that mammalian δ-COP binds related tryptophan-based motifs such as that from ArfGAP1 in a similar manner. We conclude that δ-COP subunits bind Wxn(1–6)[WF] motifs within unstructured regions of proteins that influence the lifecycle of COPI-coated vesicles; this conclusion is supported by the observation that, in the context of a sensitizing domain deletion in Dsl1p, mutating the tryptophan-based motif-binding site in yeast causes defects in both growth and carboxypeptidase Y trafficking/processing. PMID:26578768

18. The Frequency of Internal Shine–Dalgarno-like Motifs in Prokaryotes

PubMed Central

Diwan, Gaurav D; Agashe, Deepa

2016-01-01

In prokaryotes, translation initiation typically depends on complementary binding between a G-rich Shine–Dalgarno (SD) motif in the 5′ untranslated region of mRNAs, and the 3′ tail of the 16S ribosomal RNA (the anti-SD sequence). In some cases, internal SD-like motifs in the coding region generate “programmed” ribosomal pauses that are beneficial for protein folding or accurate targeting. On the other hand, such pauses can also reduce protein production, generating purifying selection against internal SD-like motifs. This selection should be stronger in GC-rich genomes that are more likely to harbor the G-rich SD motif. However, the nature and consequences of selection acting on internal SD-like motifs within genomes and across species remains unclear. We analyzed the frequency of SD-like hexamers in the coding regions of 284 prokaryotes (277 with known anti-SD sequences and 7 without a typical SD mechanism). After accounting for GC content, we found that internal SD-like hexamers are avoided in 230 species, including three without a typical SD mechanism. The degree of avoidance was higher in GC-rich genomes, mesophiles, and N-terminal regions of genes. In contrast, 54 species either showed no signature of avoidance or were enriched in internal SD-like motifs. C-terminal gene regions were relatively enriched in SD-like hexamers, particularly for genes in operons or those followed closely by downstream genes. Together, our results suggest that the frequency of internal SD-like hexamers is governed by multiple factors including GC content and genome organization, and further empirical work is necessary to understand the evolution and functional roles of these motifs. PMID:27189998

19. LRRCE: a leucine-rich repeat cysteine capping motif unique to the chordate lineage

PubMed Central

Park, Hosil; Huxley-Jones, Julie; Boot-Handford, Ray P; Bishop, Paul N; Attwood, Teresa K; Bella, Jordi

2008-01-01

Background The small leucine-rich repeat proteins and proteoglycans (SLRPs) form an important family of regulatory molecules that participate in many essential functions. They typically control the correct assembly of collagen fibrils, regulate mineral deposition in bone, and modulate the activity of potent cellular growth factors through many signalling cascades. SLRPs belong to the group of extracellular leucine-rich repeat proteins that are flanked at both ends by disulphide-bonded caps that protect the hydrophobic core of the terminal repeats. A capping motif specific to SLRPs has been recently described in the crystal structures of the core proteins of decorin and biglycan. This motif, designated as LRRCE, differs in both sequence and structure from other, more widespread leucine-rich capping motifs. To investigate if the LRRCE motif is a common structural feature found in other leucine-rich repeat proteins, we have defined characteristic sequence patterns and used them in genome-wide searches. Results The LRRCE motif is a structural element exclusive to the main group of SLRPs. It appears to have evolved during early chordate evolution and is not found in protein sequences from non-chordate genomes. Our search has expanded the family of SLRPs to include new predicted protein sequences, mainly in fishes but with intriguing putative orthologs in mammals. The chromosomal locations of the newly predicted SLRP genes would support the large-scale genome or gene duplications that are thought to have occurred during vertebrate evolution. From this expanded list we describe a new class of SLRP sequences that could be representative of an ancestral SLRP gene. Conclusion Given its exclusivity the LRRCE motif is a useful annotation tool for the identification and classification of new SLRP sequences in genome databases. The expanded list of members of the SLRP family offers interesting insights into early vertebrate evolution and suggests an early chordate evolutionary

20. An Analysis of Multi-type Relational Interactions in FMA Using Graph Motifs with Disjointness Constraints

SciTech Connect

Zhang, Guo Qiang; Luo, Lingyun; Ogbuji, Chime; Joslyn, Cliff A.; Mejino, Jose; Sahoo, Satya S.

2012-11-24

The interaction of multiple types of relationships among anatomical classes in the Foundational Model of Anatomy (FMA) can provide inferred information valuable for quality assurance. This paper introduces a method called Motif Checking (MOCH) to study the effects of such multi-relation type interactions. MOCH represents patterns of multitype interaction as small labeled sub-graph motifs, whose nodes represent class variables, and labeled edges represent relational types. By representing FMA as an RDF graph and motifs as SPARQL queries, fragments of FMA are automatically obtained as auditing candidates. Leveraging the scalability and reconfigurability of Semantic Web Technology (OWL, RDF and SPARQL) and Virtuoso, we performed exhaustive analyses of three 2-node motifs, resulting in 638 matching FMA configurations; twelve 3-node motifs, resulting in 202,960 configurations. Using the Principal Ideal Explorer (PIE) methodology as an extension of MOCH, we were able to identify 755 root nodes with 4,100 respective descendants with opposing antonyms in their class names for arbitrary-length motifs. With possible disjointness implied by antonyms, we performed manual inspection of a subset of the resulting FMA fragments and tracked down a source of abnormal inferred conclusions (captured by the motifs), coming from a gender-neutral class being modeled as a part of gender-specific class, such as “Urinary system” is a part of “Female human body.” Our results demonstrate that MOCH and PIE provide a unique source of valuable information for quality assurance. Since our approach is general, it is applicable to any ontological system with an OWL representation.

1. The Consensus 5' Splice Site Motif Inhibits mRNA Nuclear Export

PubMed Central

Lee, Eliza S.; Akef, Abdalla; Mahadevan, Kohila; Palazzo, Alexander F.

2015-01-01

In eukaryotes, mRNAs are synthesized in the nucleus and then exported to the cytoplasm where they are translated into proteins. We have mapped an element, which when present in the 3’terminal exon or in an unspliced mRNA, inhibits mRNA nuclear export. This element has the same sequence as the consensus 5’splice site motif that is used to define the start of introns. Previously it was shown that when this motif is retained in the mRNA, it causes defects in 3’cleavage and polyadenylation and promotes mRNA decay. Our new data indicates that this motif also inhibits nuclear export and promotes the targeting of transcripts to nuclear speckles, foci within the nucleus which have been linked to splicing. The motif, however, does not disrupt splicing or the recruitment of UAP56 or TAP/Nxf1 to the RNA, which are normally required for nuclear export. Genome wide analysis of human mRNAs, lncRNA and eRNAs indicates that this motif is depleted from naturally intronless mRNAs and eRNAs, but less so in lncRNAs. This motif is also depleted from the beginning and ends of the 3’terminal exons of spliced mRNAs, but less so for lncRNAs. Our data suggests that the presence of the 5’splice site motif in mature RNAs promotes their nuclear retention and may help to distinguish mRNAs from misprocessed transcripts and transcriptional noise. PMID:25826302

2. Structural basis for the binding of tryptophan-based motifs by δ-COP.

PubMed

Suckling, Richard J; Poon, Pak Phi; Travis, Sophie M; Majoul, Irina V; Hughson, Frederick M; Evans, Philip R; Duden, Rainer; Owen, David J

2015-11-17

Coatomer consists of two subcomplexes: the membrane-targeting, ADP ribosylation factor 1 (Arf1):GTP-binding βγδζ-COP F-subcomplex, which is related to the adaptor protein (AP) clathrin adaptors, and the cargo-binding αβ'ε-COP B-subcomplex. We present the structure of the C-terminal μ-homology domain of the yeast δ-COP subunit in complex with the WxW motif from its binding partner, the endoplasmic reticulum-localized Dsl1 tether. The motif binds at a site distinct from that used by the homologous AP μ subunits to bind YxxΦ cargo motifs with its two tryptophan residues sitting in compatible pockets. We also show that the Saccharomyces cerevisiae Arf GTPase-activating protein (GAP) homolog Gcs1p uses a related WxxF motif at its extreme C terminus to bind to δ-COP at the same site in the same way. Mutations designed on the basis of the structure in conjunction with isothermal titration calorimetry confirm the mode of binding and show that mammalian δ-COP binds related tryptophan-based motifs such as that from ArfGAP1 in a similar manner. We conclude that δ-COP subunits bind Wxn(1-6)[WF] motifs within unstructured regions of proteins that influence the lifecycle of COPI-coated vesicles; this conclusion is supported by the observation that, in the context of a sensitizing domain deletion in Dsl1p, mutating the tryptophan-based motif-binding site in yeast causes defects in both growth and carboxypeptidase Y trafficking/processing.

3. Structural Basis for WDR5 Interaction (Win) Motif Recognition in Human SET1 Family Histone Methyltransferases*

PubMed Central

Dharmarajan, Venkatasubramanian; Lee, Jeong-Heon; Patel, Anamika; Skalnik, David G.; Cosgrove, Michael S.

2012-01-01

Translocations and amplifications of the mixed lineage leukemia-1 (MLL1) gene are associated with aggressive myeloid and lymphocytic leukemias in humans. MLL1 is a member of the SET1 family of histone H3 lysine 4 (H3K4) methyltransferases, which are required for transcription of genes involved in hematopoiesis and development. MLL1 associates with a subcomplex containing WDR5, RbBP5, Ash2L, and DPY-30 (WRAD), which together form the MLL1 core complex that is required for sequential mono- and dimethylation of H3K4. We previously demonstrated that WDR5 binds the conserved WDR5 interaction (Win) motif of MLL1 in vitro, an interaction that is required for the H3K4 dimethylation activity of the MLL1 core complex. In this investigation, we demonstrate that arginine 3765 of the MLL1 Win motif is required to co-immunoprecipitate WRAD from mammalian cells, suggesting that the WDR5-Win motif interaction is important for the assembly of the MLL1 core complex in vivo. We also demonstrate that peptides that mimic SET1 family Win motif sequences inhibit H3K4 dimethylation by the MLL1 core complex with varying degrees of efficiency. To understand the structural basis for these differences, we determined structures of WDR5 bound to six different naturally occurring Win motif sequences at resolutions ranging from 1.9 to 1.2 Å. Our results reveal that binding energy differences result from interactions between non-conserved residues C-terminal to the Win motif and to a lesser extent from subtle variation of residues within the Win motif. These results highlight a new class of methylation inhibitors that may be useful for the treatment of MLL1-related malignancies. PMID:22665483

4. Structural basis for WDR5 interaction (Win) motif recognition in human SET1 family histone methyltransferases.

PubMed

Dharmarajan, Venkatasubramanian; Lee, Jeong-Heon; Patel, Anamika; Skalnik, David G; Cosgrove, Michael S

2012-08-10

Translocations and amplifications of the mixed lineage leukemia-1 (MLL1) gene are associated with aggressive myeloid and lymphocytic leukemias in humans. MLL1 is a member of the SET1 family of histone H3 lysine 4 (H3K4) methyltransferases, which are required for transcription of genes involved in hematopoiesis and development. MLL1 associates with a subcomplex containing WDR5, RbBP5, Ash2L, and DPY-30 (WRAD), which together form the MLL1 core complex that is required for sequential mono- and dimethylation of H3K4. We previously demonstrated that WDR5 binds the conserved WDR5 interaction (Win) motif of MLL1 in vitro, an interaction that is required for the H3K4 dimethylation activity of the MLL1 core complex. In this investigation, we demonstrate that arginine 3765 of the MLL1 Win motif is required to co-immunoprecipitate WRAD from mammalian cells, suggesting that the WDR5-Win motif interaction is important for the assembly of the MLL1 core complex in vivo. We also demonstrate that peptides that mimic SET1 family Win motif sequences inhibit H3K4 dimethylation by the MLL1 core complex with varying degrees of efficiency. To understand the structural basis for these differences, we determined structures of WDR5 bound to six different naturally occurring Win motif sequences at resolutions ranging from 1.9 to 1.2 Å. Our results reveal that binding energy differences result from interactions between non-conserved residues C-terminal to the Win motif and to a lesser extent from subtle variation of residues within the Win motif. These results highlight a new class of methylation inhibitors that may be useful for the treatment of MLL1-related malignancies. PMID:22665483

5. Subtle Changes in Motif Positioning Cause Tissue-Specific Effects on Robustness of an Enhancer's Activity

PubMed Central

Erceg, Jelena; Saunders, Timothy E.; Girardot, Charles; Devos, Damien P.; Hufnagel, Lars; Furlong, Eileen E. M.

2014-01-01

Deciphering the specific contribution of individual motifs within cis-regulatory modules (CRMs) is crucial to understanding how gene expression is regulated and how this process is affected by sequence variation. But despite vast improvements in the ability to identify where transcription factors (TFs) bind throughout the genome, we are limited in our ability to relate information on motif occupancy to function from sequence alone. Here, we engineered 63 synthetic CRMs to systematically assess the relationship between variation in the content and spacing of motifs within CRMs to CRM activity during development using Drosophila transgenic embryos. In over half the cases, very simple elements containing only one or two types of TF binding motifs were capable of driving specific spatio-temporal patterns during development. Different motif organizations provide different degrees of robustness to enhancer activity, ranging from binary on-off responses to more subtle effects including embryo-to-embryo and within-embryo variation. By quantifying the effects of subtle changes in motif organization, we were able to model biophysical rules that explain CRM behavior and may contribute to the spatial positioning of CRM activity in vivo. For the same enhancer, the effects of small differences in motif positions varied in developmentally related tissues, suggesting that gene expression may be more susceptible to sequence variation in one tissue compared to another. This result has important implications for human eQTL studies in which many associated mutations are found in cis-regulatory regions, though the mechanism for how they affect tissue-specific gene expression is often not understood. PMID:24391522

6. The Geometry of Plasticity-Induced Sensitization in Isoinhibitory Rate Motifs.

PubMed

Kumar, Gautam; Ching, ShiNung

2016-09-01

A well-known phenomenon in sensory perception is desensitization, wherein behavioral responses to persistent stimuli become attenuated over time. In this letter, our focus is on studying mechanisms through which desensitization may be mediated at the network level and, specifically, how sensitivity changes arise as a function of long-term plasticity. Our principal object of study is a generic isoinhibitory motif: a small excitatory-inhibitory network with recurrent inhibition. Such a motif is of interest due to its overrepresentation in laminar sensory network architectures. Here, we introduce a sensitivity analysis derived from control theory in which we characterize the fixed-energy reachable set of the motif. This set describes the regions of the phase-space that are more easily (in terms of stimulus energy) accessed, thus providing a holistic assessment of sensitivity. We specifically focus on how the geometry of this set changes due to repetitive application of a persistent stimulus. We find that for certain motif dynamics, this geometry contracts along the stimulus orientation while expanding in orthogonal directions. In other words, the motif not only desensitizes to the persistent input, but heightens its responsiveness (sensitizes) to those that are orthogonal. We develop a perturbation analysis that links this sensitization to both plasticity-induced changes in synaptic weights and the intrinsic dynamics of the network, highlighting that the effect is not purely due to weight-dependent disinhibition. Instead, this effect depends on the relative neuronal time constants and the consequent stimulus-induced drift that arises in the motif phase-space. For tightly distributed (but random) parameter ranges, sensitization is quite generic and manifests in larger recurrent E-I networks within which the motif is embedded. PMID:27391684

7. Comparative genomics of metabolic capacities of regulons controlled by cis-regulatory RNA motifs in bacteria

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background In silico comparative genomics approaches have been efficiently used for functional prediction and reconstruction of metabolic and regulatory networks. Riboswitches are metabolite-sensing structures often found in bacterial mRNA leaders controlling gene expression on transcriptional or translational levels. An increasing number of riboswitches and other cis-regulatory RNAs have been recently classified into numerous RNA families in the Rfam database. High conservation of these RNA motifs provides a unique advantage for their genomic identification and comparative analysis. Results A comparative genomics approach implemented in the RegPredict tool was used for reconstruction and functional annotation of regulons controlled by RNAs from 43 Rfam families in diverse taxonomic groups of Bacteria. The inferred regulons include ~5200 cis-regulatory RNAs and more than 12000 target genes in 255 microbial genomes. All predicted RNA-regulated genes were classified into specific and overall functional categories. Analysis of taxonomic distribution of these categories allowed us to establish major functional preferences for each analyzed cis-regulatory RNA motif family. Overall, most RNA motif regulons showed predictable functional content in accordance with their experimentally established effector ligands. Our results suggest that some RNA motifs (including thiamin pyrophosphate and cobalamin riboswitches that control the cofactor metabolism) are widespread and likely originated from the last common ancestor of all bacteria. However, many more analyzed RNA motifs are restricted to a narrow taxonomic group of bacteria and likely represent more recent evolutionary innovations. Conclusions The reconstructed regulatory networks for major known RNA motifs substantially expand the existing knowledge of transcriptional regulation in bacteria. The inferred regulons can be used for genetic experiments, functional annotations of genes, metabolic reconstruction and

8. Form and function in gene regulatory networks: the structure of network motifs determines fundamental properties of their dynamical state space.

PubMed

Ahnert, S E; Fink, T M A

2016-07-01

Network motifs have been studied extensively over the past decade, and certain motifs, such as the feed-forward loop, play an important role in regulatory networks. Recent studies have used Boolean network motifs to explore the link between form and function in gene regulatory networks and have found that the structure of a motif does not strongly determine its function, if this is defined in terms of the gene expression patterns the motif can produce. Here, we offer a different, higher-level definition of the 'function' of a motif, in terms of two fundamental properties of its dynamical state space as a Boolean network. One is the basin entropy, which is a complexity measure of the dynamics of Boolean networks. The other is the diversity of cyclic attractor lengths that a given motif can produce. Using these two measures, we examine all 104 topologically distinct three-node motifs and show that the structural properties of a motif, such as the presence of feedback loops and feed-forward loops, predict fundamental characteristics of its dynamical state space, which in turn determine aspects of its functional versatility. We also show that these higher-level properties have a direct bearing on real regulatory networks, as both basin entropy and cycle length diversity show a close correspondence with the prevalence, in neural and genetic regulatory networks, of the 13 connected motifs without self-interactions that have been studied extensively in the literature. PMID:27440255

9. Form and function in gene regulatory networks: the structure of network motifs determines fundamental properties of their dynamical state space

PubMed Central

Ahnert, S. E.; Fink, T. M. A.

2016-01-01

Network motifs have been studied extensively over the past decade, and certain motifs, such as the feed-forward loop, play an important role in regulatory networks. Recent studies have used Boolean network motifs to explore the link between form and function in gene regulatory networks and have found that the structure of a motif does not strongly determine its function, if this is defined in terms of the gene expression patterns the motif can produce. Here, we offer a different, higher-level definition of the ‘function’ of a motif, in terms of two fundamental properties of its dynamical state space as a Boolean network. One is the basin entropy, which is a complexity measure of the dynamics of Boolean networks. The other is the diversity of cyclic attractor lengths that a given motif can produce. Using these two measures, we examine all 104 topologically distinct three-node motifs and show that the structural properties of a motif, such as the presence of feedback loops and feed-forward loops, predict fundamental characteristics of its dynamical state space, which in turn determine aspects of its functional versatility. We also show that these higher-level properties have a direct bearing on real regulatory networks, as both basin entropy and cycle length diversity show a close correspondence with the prevalence, in neural and genetic regulatory networks, of the 13 connected motifs without self-interactions that have been studied extensively in the literature. PMID:27440255

10. Disparate requirements for the Walker A and B ATPase motifs ofhuman RAD51D in homologous recombination

SciTech Connect

Wiese, Claudia; Hinz, John M.; Tebbs, Robert S.; Nham, Peter B.; Urbin, Salustra S.; Collins, David W.; Thompson, Larry H.; Schild, David

2006-04-21

11. Form and function in gene regulatory networks: the structure of network motifs determines fundamental properties of their dynamical state space.

PubMed

Ahnert, S E; Fink, T M A

2016-07-01

Network motifs have been studied extensively over the past decade, and certain motifs, such as the feed-forward loop, play an important role in regulatory networks. Recent studies have used Boolean network motifs to explore the link between form and function in gene regulatory networks and have found that the structure of a motif does not strongly determine its function, if this is defined in terms of the gene expression patterns the motif can produce. Here, we offer a different, higher-level definition of the 'function' of a motif, in terms of two fundamental properties of its dynamical state space as a Boolean network. One is the basin entropy, which is a complexity measure of the dynamics of Boolean networks. The other is the diversity of cyclic attractor lengths that a given motif can produce. Using these two measures, we examine all 104 topologically distinct three-node motifs and show that the structural properties of a motif, such as the presence of feedback loops and feed-forward loops, predict fundamental characteristics of its dynamical state space, which in turn determine aspects of its functional versatility. We also show that these higher-level properties have a direct bearing on real regulatory networks, as both basin entropy and cycle length diversity show a close correspondence with the prevalence, in neural and genetic regulatory networks, of the 13 connected motifs without self-interactions that have been studied extensively in the literature.

12. A genome-wide identification of basic helix-loop-helix motifs in Pediculus humanus corporis (Phthiraptera: Pediculidae).

PubMed

Wang, Xu-Hua; Wang, Yong; Zhang, De-Bao; Liu, A-Ke; Yao, Qin; Chen, Ke-Ping

2014-01-01

Basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) proteins comprise a large superfamily of transcription factors, which are involved in the regulation of various developmental processes. bHLH family members are widely distributed in various eukaryotes including yeast, fruit fly, zebrafish, mouse, and human. In this study, we identified 55 bHLH motifs encoded in genome sequence of the human body louse, Pediculus humanus corporis (Phthiraptera: Pediculidae). Phylogenetic analyses of the identified P. humanus corporis bHLH (PhcbHLH) motifs revealed that there are 23, 11, 9, 1, 10, and 1 member(s) in groups A, B, C, D, E, and F, respectively. Examination to GenBank annotations of the 55 PhcbHLH members indicated that 29 PhcbHLH proteins were annotated in consistence with our analytical result, 8 were annotated different with our analytical result, 12 were merely annotated as hypothetical protein, and the rest 6 were not deposited in GenBank. A comparison on insect bHLH gene composition revealed that human body louse possibly has more hairy and E(spl) genes than other insect species. Because hairy and E(spl) genes have been found to negatively regulate the differentiation of insect preneural cells, it is suggested that the existence of additional hairy and E(spl) genes in human body louse is probably the consequence of its long period adaptation to the relatively dark and stable environment. These data provide good references for further studies on regulatory functions of bHLH proteins in the growth and development of human body louse. PMID:25434030

13. Superatoms and Metal-Semiconductor Motifs for Cluster Materials

SciTech Connect

Castleman, A. W.

2013-10-11

A molecular understanding of catalysis and catalytically active materials is of fundamental importance in designing new substances for applications in energy and fuels. We have performed reactivity studies and ultrafast ionization and coulomb explosion studies on a variety of catalytically-relevant materials, including transition metal oxides of Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Ti, V, Nb, and Ta. We demonstrate that differences in charge state, geometry, and elemental composition of clusters of such materials determine chemical reactivity and ionization behavior, crucial steps in improving performance of catalysts.

14. V1R promoters are well conserved and exhibit common putative regulatory motifs

PubMed Central

Stewart, Robert; Lane, Robert P

2007-01-01

Background The mouse vomeronasal organ (VNO) processes chemosensory information, including pheromone signals that influence reproductive behaviors. The sensory neurons of the VNO express two types of chemosensory receptors, V1R and V2R. There are ~165 V1R genes in the mouse genome that have been classified into ~12 divergent subfamilies. Each sensory neuron of the apical compartment of the VNO transcribes only one of the repertoire of V1R genes. A model for mutually exclusive V1R transcription in these cells has been proposed in which each V1R gene might compete stochastically for a single transcriptional complex. This model predicts that the large repertoire of divergent V1R genes in the mouse genome contains common regulatory elements. In this study, we have characterized V1R promoter regions by comparative genomics and by mapping transcription start sites. Results We find that transcription is initiated from ~1 kb promoter regions that are well conserved within V1R subfamilies. While cross-subfamily homology is not evident by traditional methods, we developed a heuristic motif-searching tool, LogoAlign, and applied this tool to identify motifs shared within the promoters of all V1R genes. Our motif-searching tool exhibits rapid convergence to a relatively small number of non-redundant solutions (97% convergence). We also find that the best motifs contain significantly more information than those identified in controls, and that these motifs are more likely to be found in the immediate vicinity of transcription start sites than elsewhere in gene blocks. The best motifs occur near transcription start sites of ~90% of all V1R genes and across all of the divergent subfamilies. Therefore, these motifs are candidate binding sites for transcription factors involved in V1R co-regulation. Conclusion Our analyses show that V1R subfamilies have broad and well conserved promoter regions from which transcription is initiated. Results from a new motif-finding algorithm, Logo

15. Composition-dependent stability of the medium-range order responsible for metallic glass formation

SciTech Connect

Zhang, Feng; Ji, Min; Fang, Xiao-Wei; Sun, Yang; Wang, Cai-Zhuang; Mendelev, Mikhail I.; Kramer, M. J.; Napolitano, Ralph E.; Ho, Kai-Ming

2014-09-18

The competition between the characteristic medium-range order corresponding to amorphous alloys and that in ordered crystalline phases is central to phase selection and morphology evolution under various processing conditions. We examine the stability of a model glass system, Cu–Zr, by comparing the energetics of various medium-range structural motifs over a wide range of compositions using first-principles calculations. Furthermore, we focus specifically on motifs that represent possible building blocks for competing glassy and crystalline phases, and we employ a genetic algorithm to efficiently identify the energetically favored decorations of each motif for specific compositions. These results show that a Bergman-type motif with crystallization-resisting icosahedral symmetry is energetically most favorable in the composition range 0.63 < xCu < 0.68, and is the underlying motif for one of the three optimal glass-forming ranges observed experimentally for this binary system (Li et al., 2008). This work establishes an energy-based methodology to evaluate specific medium-range structural motifs which compete with stable crystalline nuclei in deeply undercooled liquids.

16. qPMS9: An Efficient Algorithm for Quorum Planted Motif Search

Nicolae, Marius; Rajasekaran, Sanguthevar

2015-01-01

Discovering patterns in biological sequences is a crucial problem. For example, the identification of patterns in DNA sequences has resulted in the determination of open reading frames, identification of gene promoter elements, intron/exon splicing sites, and SH RNAs, location of RNA degradation signals, identification of alternative splicing sites, etc. In protein sequences, patterns have led to domain identification, location of protease cleavage sites, identification of signal peptides, protein interactions, determination of protein degradation elements, identification of protein trafficking elements, discovery of short functional motifs, etc. In this paper we focus on the identification of an important class of patterns, namely, motifs. We study the (l, d) motif search problem or Planted Motif Search (PMS). PMS receives as input n strings and two integers l and d. It returns all sequences M of length l that occur in each input string, where each occurrence differs from M in at most d positions. Another formulation is quorum PMS (qPMS), where the motif appears in at least q% of the strings. We introduce qPMS9, a parallel exact qPMS algorithm that offers significant runtime improvements on DNA and protein datasets. qPMS9 solves the challenging DNA (l, d)-instances (28, 12) and (30, 13). The source code is available at https://code.google.com/p/qpms9/.

17. Disruption of the RAG2 zinc finger motif impairs protein stability and causes immunodeficiency.

PubMed

Xu, Ke; Liu, Haifeng; Shi, Zhubing; Song, Guangrong; Zhu, Xiaoyan; Jiang, Yuzhang; Zhou, Zhaocai; Liu, Xiaolong

2016-04-01

Although the RAG2 core domain is the minimal region required for V(D)J recombination, the noncore region also plays important roles in the regulation of recombination, and mutations in this region are often related to severe combined immunodeficiency. A complete understanding of the functions of the RAG2 noncore region and the potential contributions of its individual residues has not yet been achieved. Here, we show that the zinc finger motif within the noncore region of RAG2 is indispensable for maintaining the stability of the RAG2 protein. The zinc finger motif in the noncore region of RAG2 is highly conserved from zebrafish to humans. Knock-in mice carrying a zinc finger mutation (C478Y) exhibit decreased V(D)J recombination efficiency and serious impairment in T/B-cell development due to RAG2 instability. Further studies also reveal the importance of the zinc finger motif for RAG2 stability. Moreover, mice harboring a RAG2 noncore region mutation (N474S), which is located near C478 but is not zinc-binding, exhibit no impairment in either RAG2 stability or T/B-cell development. Taken together, our findings contribute to defining critical functions of the RAG2 zinc finger motif and provide insights into the relationships between the mutations within this motif and immunodeficiency diseases. PMID:26692406

18. Intronic motif pairs cooperate across exons to promote pre-mRNA splicing

PubMed Central

2010-01-01

Background A very early step in splice site recognition is exon definition, a process that is as yet poorly understood. Communication between the two ends of an exon is thought to be required for this step. We report genome-wide evidence for exons being defined through the combinatorial activity of motifs located in flanking intronic regions. Results Strongly co-occurring motifs were found to specifically reside in four intronic regions surrounding a large number of human exons. These paired motifs occur around constitutive and alternative exons but not pseudo exons. Most co-occurring motifs are limited to intronic regions within 100 nucleotides of the exon. They are preferentially associated with weaker exons. Their pairing is conserved in evolution and they exhibit a lower frequency of single nucleotide polymorphism when paired. Paired motifs display specificity with respect to distance from the exon borders and in constitutive versus alternative splicing. Many resemble binding sites for heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoproteins. Specific pairs are associated with tissue-specific genes, the higher expression of which coincides with that of the pertinent RNA binding proteins. Tested pairs acted synergistically to enhance exon inclusion, and this enhancement was found to be exon-specific. Conclusions The exon-flanking sequence pairs identified here by genomic analysis promote exon inclusion and may play a role in the exon definition step in pre-mRNA splicing. We propose a model in which multiple concerted interactions are required between exonic sequences and flanking intronic sequences to effect exon definition. PMID:20704715

19. A conserved motif mediates both multimer formation and allosteric activation of phosphoglycerate mutase 5.

PubMed

Wilkins, Jordan M; McConnell, Cyrus; Tipton, Peter A; Hannink, Mark

2014-09-01

Phosphoglycerate mutase 5 (PGAM5) is an atypical mitochondrial Ser/Thr phosphatase that modulates mitochondrial dynamics and participates in both apoptotic and necrotic cell death. The mechanisms that regulate the phosphatase activity of PGAM5 are poorly understood. The C-terminal phosphoglycerate mutase domain of PGAM5 shares homology with the catalytic domains found in other members of the phosphoglycerate mutase family, including a conserved histidine that is absolutely required for catalytic activity. However, this conserved domain is not sufficient for maximal phosphatase activity. We have identified a highly conserved amino acid motif, WDXNWD, located within the unique N-terminal region, which is required for assembly of PGAM5 into large multimeric complexes. Alanine substitutions within the WDXNWD motif abolish the formation of multimeric complexes and markedly reduce phosphatase activity of PGAM5. A peptide containing the WDXNWD motif dissociates the multimeric complex and reduces but does not fully abolish phosphatase activity. Addition of the WDXNWD-containing peptide in trans to a mutant PGAM5 protein lacking the WDXNWD motif markedly increases phosphatase activity of the mutant protein. Our results are consistent with an intermolecular allosteric regulation mechanism for the phosphatase activity of PGAM5, in which the assembly of PGAM5 into multimeric complexes, mediated by the WDXNWD motif, results in maximal activation of phosphatase activity. Our results suggest the possibility of identifying small molecules that function as allosteric regulators of the phosphatase activity of PGAM5. PMID:25012655

20. Alanine substitutions of noncysteine residues in the cysteine-stabilized αβ motif

PubMed Central

Yang, Ying-Fang; Cheng, Kuo-Chang; Tsai, Ping-Hsing; Liu, Chung-Cheng; Lee, Tian-Ren; Ping-Chiang Lyu

2009-01-01

The protein scaffold is a peptide framework with a high tolerance of residue modifications. The cysteine-stabilized αβ motif (CSαβ) consists of an α-helix and an antiparallel triple-stranded β-sheet connected by two disulfide bridges. Proteins containing this motif share low sequence identity but high structural similarity and has been suggested as a good scaffold for protein engineering. The Vigna radiate defensin 1 (VrD1), a plant defensin, serves here as a model protein to probe the amino acid tolerance of CSαβ motif. A systematic alanine substitution is performed on the VrD1. The key residues governing the inhibitory function and structure stability are monitored. Thirty-two of 46 residue positions of VrD1 are altered by site-directed mutagenesis techniques. The circular dichroism spectrum, intrinsic fluorescence spectrum, and chemical denaturation are used to analyze the conformation and structural stability of proteins. The secondary structures were highly tolerant to the amino acid substitutions; however, the protein stabilities were varied for each mutant. Many mutants, although they maintained their conformations, altered their inhibitory function significantly. In this study, we reported the first alanine scan on the plant defensin containing the CSαβ motif. The information is valuable to the scaffold with the CSαβ motif and protein engineering. PMID:19533758

1. Enhanced dipole moments in trimetallic nitride template endohedral metallofullerenes with the pentalene motif.

PubMed

Zhang, Jianyuan; Bearden, Daniel W; Fuhrer, Tim; Xu, Liaosa; Fu, Wujun; Zuo, Tianming; Dorn, Harry C

2013-03-01

Although not found to date in empty-cage fullerenes, the fused pentagon motifs (pentalenes) are allowed in endohedral metallofullerenes (EMFs). We have found that members of the trimetallic nitride template (TNT) EMF Y3N@C2n (n = 39-44) family that contain pentalene motifs exhibit significant dipole moments. This finding is predicted to be significant for other EMFs with a metal atom orientated toward the pentalene motif. Chromatographic retention data and computational results for Y3N@C2-C78, Y3N@Cs-C82, and Y3N@Cs-C84 are examples that pentalene groups lead to a significant induced dipole moment (∼1D). A special case is the Y3N@C2-C78 that contains two pentalenes in a relatively small cage. The (13)C NMR spectrum for Y3N@C2-C78 exhibits strongly deshielded signals for the fullerene cage (155-170 ppm) supporting the presence of the pentalene motif. In addition, a lengthening of the covalent M-N bond in the internal M3N cluster is found for all reported TNT EMFs that contain one or two pentalene motifs.

2. Key Structural Motifs To Predict the Cage Topology in Endohedral Metallofullerenes.

PubMed

Wang, Yang; Díaz-Tendero, Sergio; Martín, Fernando; Alcamí, Manuel

2016-02-10

We show that the relative isomer stability of fullerene anions is essentially governed by a few simple structural motifs, requiring only the connectivity information between atoms. Relative energies of a large number of isomers of fullerene anions, C(2n)(q) (2n = 68-104; q = -2, -4, -6), can be satisfactorily reproduced by merely counting the numbers of seven kinds of hexagon-based motifs. The dependence of stability on these motifs varies with the charge state, which reflects the fact that the isomeric form of the carbon cage in endohedral metallofullerenes (EMFs) often differs from that in neutral empty fullerenes. The chemical origin of the stabilization differences between motifs is discussed on the basis of electronic and strain effects as well as aromaticity. On the basis of this simple model, the extraordinary abundance of the icosahedral C80 cage in EMFs can be easily understood. We also provide an explanation for why the well-known isolated pentagon rule is often violated in smaller EMFs. Finally, simple topological indices are proposed for quantitatively predicting the relative stability of fullerene anions, allowing a rapid determination of suitable hosting cages in EMFs by just counting three simple structural motifs.

3. Effects of rate-limiting steps in transcription initiation on genetic filter motifs.

PubMed

Häkkinen, Antti; Tran, Huy; Yli-Harja, Olli; Ribeiro, Andre S

2013-01-01

The behavior of genetic motifs is determined not only by the gene-gene interactions, but also by the expression patterns of the constituent genes. Live single-molecule measurements have provided evidence that transcription initiation is a sequential process, whose kinetics plays a key role in the dynamics of mRNA and protein numbers. The extent to which it affects the behavior of cellular motifs is unknown. Here, we examine how the kinetics of transcription initiation affects the behavior of motifs performing filtering in amplitude and frequency domain. We find that the performance of each filter is degraded as transcript levels are lowered. This effect can be reduced by having a transcription process with more steps. In addition, we show that the kinetics of the stepwise transcription initiation process affects features such as filter cutoffs. These results constitute an assessment of the range of behaviors of genetic motifs as a function of the kinetics of transcription initiation, and thus will aid in tuning of synthetic motifs to attain specific characteristics without affecting their protein products.

4. A novel secondary structure based on fused five-membered rings motif

PubMed Central

Dhar, Jesmita; Kishore, Raghuvansh; Chakrabarti, Pinak

2016-01-01

An analysis of protein structures indicates the existence of a novel, fused five-membered rings motif, comprising of two residues (i and i + 1), stabilized by interresidue Ni+1–H∙∙∙Ni and intraresidue Ni+1–H∙∙∙O=Ci+1 hydrogen bonds. Fused-rings geometry is the common thread running through many commonly occurring motifs, such as β-turn, β-bulge, Asx-turn, Ser/Thr-turn, Schellman motif, and points to its structural robustness. A location close to the beginning of a β-strand is rather common for the motif. Devoid of side chain, Gly seems to be a key player in this motif, occurring at i, for which the backbone torsion angles cluster at ~(−90°, −10°) and (70°, 20°). The fused-rings structures, distant from each other in sequence, can hydrogen bond with each other, and the two segments aligned to each other in a parallel fashion, give rise to a novel secondary structure, topi, which is quite common in proteins, distinct from two major secondary structures, α-helix and β-sheet. Majority of the peptide segments making topi are identified as aggregation-prone and the residues tend to be conserved among homologous proteins. PMID:27511362

5. CHEM-PATH-TRACKER: An automated tool to analyze chemical motifs in molecular structures.

PubMed

Ribeiro, João V; Cerqueira, N M F S A; Fernandes, Pedro A; Ramos, Maria J

2014-07-01

In this article, we propose a method for locating functionally relevant chemical motifs in protein structures. The chemical motifs can be a small group of residues or structure protein fragments with highly conserved properties that have important biological functions. However, the detection of chemical motifs is rather difficult because they often consist of a set of amino acid residues separated by long, variable regions, and they only come together to form a functional group when the protein is folded into its three-dimensional structure. Furthermore, the assemblage of these residues is often dependent on non-covalent interactions among the constituent amino acids that are difficult to detect or visualize. To simplify the analysis of these chemical motifs and give access to a generalized use for all users, we developed chem-path-tracker. This software is a VMD plug-in that allows the user to highlight and reveal potential chemical motifs requiring only a few selections. The analysis is based on atoms/residues pair distances applying a modified version of Dijkstra's algorithm, and it makes possible to monitor the distances of a large pathway, even during a molecular dynamics simulation. This tool turned out to be very useful, fast, and user-friendly in the performed tests. The chem-path-tracker package is distributed as an independent platform and can be found at http://www.fc.up.pt/PortoBioComp/database/doku.php?id=chem-path-tracker. PMID:24775806

6. Different Electrostatic Potentials Define ETGE and DLG Motifs as Hinge and Latch in Oxidative Stress Response▿

PubMed Central

Tong, Kit I.; Padmanabhan, Balasundaram; Kobayashi, Akira; Shang, Chengwei; Hirotsu, Yosuke; Yokoyama, Shigeyuki; Yamamoto, Masayuki

2007-01-01

Nrf2 is the regulator of the oxidative/electrophilic stress response. Its turnover is maintained by Keap1-mediated proteasomal degradation via a two-site substrate recognition mechanism in which two Nrf2-Keap1 binding sites form a hinge and latch. The E3 ligase adaptor Keap1 recognizes Nrf2 through its conserved ETGE and DLG motifs. In this study, we examined how the ETGE and DLG motifs bind to Keap1 in a very similar fashion but with different binding affinities by comparing the crystal complex of a Keap1-DC domain-DLG peptide with that of a Keap1-DC domain-ETGE peptide. We found that these two motifs interact with the same basic surface of either Keap1-DC domain of the Keap1 homodimer. The DLG motif works to correctly position the lysines within the Nrf2 Neh2 domain for efficient ubiquitination. Together with the results from calorimetric and functional studies, we conclude that different electrostatic potentials primarily define the ETGE and DLG motifs as a hinge and latch that senses the oxidative/electrophilic stress. PMID:17785452

7. Designing synthetic RNAs to determine the relevance of structural motifs in picornavirus IRES elements

Fernandez-Chamorro, Javier; Lozano, Gloria; Garcia-Martin, Juan Antonio; Ramajo, Jorge; Dotu, Ivan; Clote, Peter; Martinez-Salas, Encarnacion

2016-04-01

The function of Internal Ribosome Entry Site (IRES) elements is intimately linked to their RNA structure. Viral IRES elements are organized in modular domains consisting of one or more stem-loops that harbor conserved RNA motifs critical for internal initiation of translation. A conserved motif is the pyrimidine-tract located upstream of the functional initiation codon in type I and II picornavirus IRES. By computationally designing synthetic RNAs to fold into a structure that sequesters the polypyrimidine tract in a hairpin, we establish a correlation between predicted inaccessibility of the pyrimidine tract and IRES activity, as determined in both in vitro and in vivo systems. Our data supports the hypothesis that structural sequestration of the pyrimidine-tract within a stable hairpin inactivates IRES activity, since the stronger the stability of the hairpin the higher the inhibition of protein synthesis. Destabilization of the stem-loop immediately upstream of the pyrimidine-tract also decreases IRES activity. Our work introduces a hybrid computational/experimental method to determine the importance of structural motifs for biological function. Specifically, we show the feasibility of using the software RNAiFold to design synthetic RNAs with particular sequence and structural motifs that permit subsequent experimental determination of the importance of such motifs for biological function.

8. RNA tertiary interactions in the large ribosomal subunit: The A-minor motif

SciTech Connect

Nissen, Poul; Ippolito, Joseph A.; Ban, Nenad; Moore, Peter B.; Steitz, Thomas A.

2009-10-07

Analysis of the 2.4-{angstrom} resolution crystal structure of the large ribosomal subunit from Haloarcula marismortui reveals the existence of an abundant and ubiquitous structural motif that stabilizes RNA tertiary and quaternary structures. This motif is termed the A-minor motif, because it involves the insertion of the smooth, minor groove edges of adenines into the minor groove of neighboring helices, preferentially at C-G base pairs, where they form hydrogen bonds with one or both of the 2' OHs of those pairs. A-minor motifs stabilize contacts between RNA helices, interactions between loops and helices, and the conformations of junctions and tight turns. The interactions between the 3' terminal adenine of tRNAs bound in either the A site or the P site with 23S rRNA are examples of functionally significant A-minor interactions. The A-minor motif is by far the most abundant tertiary structure interaction in the large ribosomal subunit; 186 adenines in 23S and 5S rRNA participate, 68 of which are conserved. It may prove to be the universally most important long-range interaction in large RNA structures.

9. Belief-propagation algorithm and the Ising model on networks with arbitrary distributions of motifs

Yoon, S.; Goltsev, A. V.; Dorogovtsev, S. N.; Mendes, J. F. F.

2011-10-01

We generalize the belief-propagation algorithm to sparse random networks with arbitrary distributions of motifs (triangles, loops, etc.). Each vertex in these networks belongs to a given set of motifs (generalization of the configuration model). These networks can be treated as sparse uncorrelated hypergraphs in which hyperedges represent motifs. Here a hypergraph is a generalization of a graph, where a hyperedge can connect any number of vertices. These uncorrelated hypergraphs are treelike (hypertrees), which crucially simplifies the problem and allows us to apply the belief-propagation algorithm to these loopy networks with arbitrary motifs. As natural examples, we consider motifs in the form of finite loops and cliques. We apply the belief-propagation algorithm to the ferromagnetic Ising model with pairwise interactions on the resulting random networks and obtain an exact solution of this model. We find an exact critical temperature of the ferromagnetic phase transition and demonstrate that with increasing the clustering coefficient and the loop size, the critical temperature increases compared to ordinary treelike complex networks. However, weak clustering does not change the critical behavior qualitatively. Our solution also gives the birth point of the giant connected component in these loopy networks.

10. Designing synthetic RNAs to determine the relevance of structural motifs in picornavirus IRES elements

PubMed Central

Fernandez-Chamorro, Javier; Lozano, Gloria; Garcia-Martin, Juan Antonio; Ramajo, Jorge; Dotu, Ivan; Clote, Peter; Martinez-Salas, Encarnacion

2016-01-01

The function of Internal Ribosome Entry Site (IRES) elements is intimately linked to their RNA structure. Viral IRES elements are organized in modular domains consisting of one or more stem-loops that harbor conserved RNA motifs critical for internal initiation of translation. A conserved motif is the pyrimidine-tract located upstream of the functional initiation codon in type I and II picornavirus IRES. By computationally designing synthetic RNAs to fold into a structure that sequesters the polypyrimidine tract in a hairpin, we establish a correlation between predicted inaccessibility of the pyrimidine tract and IRES activity, as determined in both in vitro and in vivo systems. Our data supports the hypothesis that structural sequestration of the pyrimidine-tract within a stable hairpin inactivates IRES activity, since the stronger the stability of the hairpin the higher the inhibition of protein synthesis. Destabilization of the stem-loop immediately upstream of the pyrimidine-tract also decreases IRES activity. Our work introduces a hybrid computational/experimental method to determine the importance of structural motifs for biological function. Specifically, we show the feasibility of using the software RNAiFold to design synthetic RNAs with particular sequence and structural motifs that permit subsequent experimental determination of the importance of such motifs for biological function. PMID:27053355

11. Identification of a consensus motif in substrates bound by a Type I Hsp40

PubMed Central

Kota, Pradeep; Summers, Daniel W.; Ren, Hong-Yu; Cyr, Douglas M.; Dokholyan, Nikolay V.

2009-01-01

Protein aggregation is a hallmark of a large and diverse number of conformational diseases. Molecular chaperones of the Hsp40 family (Escherichia coli DnaJ homologs) recognize misfolded disease proteins and suppress the accumulation of toxic protein species. Type I Hsp40s are very potent at suppressing protein aggregation and facilitating the refolding of damaged proteins. Yet, the molecular mechanism for the recognition of nonnative polypeptides by Type I Hsp40s such as yeast Ydj1 is not clear. Here we computationally identify a unique motif that is selectively recognized by Ydj1p. The motif is characterized by the consensus sequence GX[LMQ]{P}X{P}{CIMPVW}, where [XY] denotes either X or Y and {XY} denotes neither X nor Y. We further verify the validity of the motif by site-directed mutagenesis and show that substrate binding by Ydj1 requires recognition of this motif. A yeast proteome screen revealed that many proteins contain more than one stretch of residues that contain the motif and are separated by varying numbers of amino acids. In light of our results, we propose a 2-site peptide-binding model and a plausible mechanism of peptide presentation by Ydj1p to the chaperones of the Hsp70 family. Based on our results, and given that Ydj1p and its human ortholog Hdj2 are functionally interchangeable, we hypothesize that our results can be extended to understanding human diseases. PMID:19549854

12. The position of the Gly-xxx-Gly motif in transmembrane segments modulates dimer affinity.

PubMed

Johnson, Rachel M; Rath, Arianna; Deber, Charles M

2006-12-01

Although the intrinsic low solubility of membrane proteins presents challenges to their high-resolution structure determination, insight into the amino acid sequence features and forces that stabilize their folds has been provided through study of sequence-dependent helix-helix interactions between single transmembrane (TM) helices. While the stability of helix-helix partnerships mediated by the Gly-xxx-Gly (GG4) motif is known to be generally modulated by distal interfacial residues, it has not been established whether the position of this motif, with respect to the ends of a given TM segment, affects dimer affinity. Here we examine the relationship between motif position and affinity in the homodimers of 2 single-spanning membrane protein TM sequences: glycophorin A (GpA) and bacteriophage M13 coat protein (MCP). Using the TOXCAT assay for dimer affinity on a series of GpA and MCP TM segments that have been modified with either 4 Leu residues at each end or with 8 Leu residues at the N-terminal end, we show that in each protein, centrally located GG4 motifs are capable of stronger helix-helix interactions than those proximal to TM helix ends, even when surrounding interfacial residues are maintained. The relative importance of GG4 motifs in stabilizing helix-helix interactions therefore must be considered not only in its specific residue context but also in terms of the location of the interactive surface relative to the N and C termini of alpha-helical TM segments.

13. ATtRACT—a database of RNA-binding proteins and associated motifs

PubMed Central

Giudice, Girolamo; Sánchez-Cabo, Fátima; Torroja, Carlos; Lara-Pezzi, Enrique

2016-01-01

RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) play a crucial role in key cellular processes, including RNA transport, splicing, polyadenylation and stability. Understanding the interaction between RBPs and RNA is key to improve our knowledge of RNA processing, localization and regulation in a global manner. Despite advances in recent years, a unified non-redundant resource that includes information on experimentally validated motifs, RBPs and integrated tools to exploit this information is lacking. Here, we developed a database named ATtRACT (available at http://attract.cnic.es) that compiles information on 370 RBPs and 1583 RBP consensus binding motifs, 192 of which are not present in any other database. To populate ATtRACT we (i) extracted and hand-curated experimentally validated data from CISBP-RNA, SpliceAid–F, RBPDB databases, (ii) integrated and updated the unavailable ASD database and (iii) extracted information from Protein-RNA complexes present in Protein Data Bank database through computational analyses. ATtRACT provides also efficient algorithms to search a specific motif and scan one or more RNA sequences at a time. It also allows discovering de novo motifs enriched in a set of related sequences and compare them with the motifs included in the database. Database URL: http:// attract. cnic. es PMID:27055826

14. DXD motif-dependent and -independent effects of the chlamydia trachomatis cytotoxin CT166.

PubMed

Bothe, Miriam; Dutow, Pavel; Pich, Andreas; Genth, Harald; Klos, Andreas

2015-02-01

The Gram-negative, intracellular bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis causes acute and chronic urogenital tract infection, potentially leading to infertility and ectopic pregnancy. The only partially characterized cytotoxin CT166 of serovar D exhibits a DXD motif, which is important for the enzymatic activity of many bacterial and mammalian type A glycosyltransferases, leading to the hypothesis that CT166 possess glycosyltransferase activity. CT166-expressing HeLa cells exhibit actin reorganization, including cell rounding, which has been attributed to the inhibition of the Rho-GTPases Rac/Cdc42. Exploiting the glycosylation-sensitive Ras(27H5) antibody, we here show that CT166 induces an epitope change in Ras, resulting in inhibited ERK and PI3K signaling and delayed cell cycle progression. Consistent with the hypothesis that these effects strictly depend on the DXD motif, CT166 with the mutated DXD motif causes neither Ras-ERK inhibition nor delayed cell cycle progression. In contrast, CT166 with the mutated DXD motif is still capable of inhibiting cell migration, suggesting that CT166 with the mutated DXD motif cannot be regarded as inactive in any case. Taken together, CT166 affects various fundamental cellular processes, strongly suggesting its importance for the intracellular survival of chlamydia. PMID:25690695

15. DXD Motif-Dependent and -Independent Effects of the Chlamydia trachomatis Cytotoxin CT166

PubMed Central

Bothe, Miriam; Dutow, Pavel; Pich, Andreas; Genth, Harald; Klos, Andreas

2015-01-01

The Gram-negative, intracellular bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis causes acute and chronic urogenital tract infection, potentially leading to infertility and ectopic pregnancy. The only partially characterized cytotoxin CT166 of serovar D exhibits a DXD motif, which is important for the enzymatic activity of many bacterial and mammalian type A glycosyltransferases, leading to the hypothesis that CT166 possess glycosyltransferase activity. CT166-expressing HeLa cells exhibit actin reorganization, including cell rounding, which has been attributed to the inhibition of the Rho-GTPases Rac/Cdc42. Exploiting the glycosylation-sensitive Ras(27H5) antibody, we here show that CT166 induces an epitope change in Ras, resulting in inhibited ERK and PI3K signaling and delayed cell cycle progression. Consistent with the hypothesis that these effects strictly depend on the DXD motif, CT166 with the mutated DXD motif causes neither Ras-ERK inhibition nor delayed cell cycle progression. In contrast, CT166 with the mutated DXD motif is still capable of inhibiting cell migration, suggesting that CT166 with the mutated DXD motif cannot be regarded as inactive in any case. Taken together, CT166 affects various fundamental cellular processes, strongly suggesting its importance for the intracellular survival of chlamydia. PMID:25690695

16. Duplication and Divergence Effect on Network Motifs in Undirected Bio-Molecular Networks.

PubMed

Pei Wang; Jinhu Lu; Xinghuo Yu; Zengrong Liu

2015-06-01

Duplication and divergence are two basic evolutionary mechanisms of bio-molecular networks. Real-world bio-molecular networks and their statistical characteristics can be well mimicked by artificial algorithms based on the two mechanisms. Bio-molecular networks consist of network motifs, which act as building blocks of large-scale networks. A fundamental question is how network motifs are evolved from long time evolution and natural selection. By considering the effect of various duplication and divergence strategies, we find that the underlying duplication scheme of the real-world undirected bio-molecular networks would rather follow the anti-preference strategy than the random one. The anti-preference duplication mechanism and the dimerization processes can lead to the formation of various motifs, and robustly conserve proper quantities of motifs in the artificial networks as that in the real-world ones. Furthermore, the anti-preference mechanism and edge deletion divergence can robustly preserve the sparsity of the networks. The investigations reveal the possible evolutionary mechanisms of network motifs in real-world bio-molecular networks, and have potential implications in the design, synthesis and reengineering of biological networks for biomedical purpose. PMID:25203993

17. Cofunctional Subpathways Were Regulated by Transcription Factor with Common Motif, Common Family, or Common Tissue

PubMed Central

Su, Fei; Shang, Desi; Xu, Yanjun; Feng, Li; Yang, Haixiu; Liu, Baoquan; Su, Shengyang; Chen, Lina; Li, Xia

2015-01-01

Dissecting the characteristics of the transcription factor (TF) regulatory subpathway is helpful for understanding the TF underlying regulatory function in complex biological systems. To gain insight into the influence of TFs on their regulatory subpathways, we constructed a global TF-subpathways network (TSN) to analyze systematically the regulatory effect of common-motif, common-family, or common-tissue TFs on subpathways. We performed cluster analysis to show that the common-motif, common-family, or common-tissue TFs that regulated the same pathway classes tended to cluster together and contribute to the same biological function that led to disease initiation and progression. We analyzed the Jaccard coefficient to show that the functional consistency of subpathways regulated by the TF pairs with common motif, common family, or common tissue was significantly greater than the random TF pairs at the subpathway level, pathway level, and pathway class level. For example, HNF4A (hepatocyte nuclear factor 4, alpha) and NR1I3 (nuclear receptor subfamily 1, group I, member 3) were a pair of TFs with common motif, common family, and common tissue. They were involved in drug metabolism pathways and were liver-specific factors required for physiological transcription. In short, we inferred that the cofunctional subpathways were regulated by common-motif, common-family, or common-tissue TFs. PMID:26688819

18. Key Structural Motifs To Predict the Cage Topology in Endohedral Metallofullerenes.

PubMed

Wang, Yang; Díaz-Tendero, Sergio; Martín, Fernando; Alcamí, Manuel

2016-02-10

We show that the relative isomer stability of fullerene anions is essentially governed by a few simple structural motifs, requiring only the connectivity information between atoms. Relative energies of a large number of isomers of fullerene anions, C(2n)(q) (2n = 68-104; q = -2, -4, -6), can be satisfactorily reproduced by merely counting the numbers of seven kinds of hexagon-based motifs. The dependence of stability on these motifs varies with the charge state, which reflects the fact that the isomeric form of the carbon cage in endohedral metallofullerenes (EMFs) often differs from that in neutral empty fullerenes. The chemical origin of the stabilization differences between motifs is discussed on the basis of electronic and strain effects as well as aromaticity. On the basis of this simple model, the extraordinary abundance of the icosahedral C80 cage in EMFs can be easily understood. We also provide an explanation for why the well-known isolated pentagon rule is often violated in smaller EMFs. Finally, simple topological indices are proposed for quantitatively predicting the relative stability of fullerene anions, allowing a rapid determination of suitable hosting cages in EMFs by just counting three simple structural motifs. PMID:26762322

19. Two motifs target Batten disease protein CLN3 to lysosomes in transfected nonneuronal and neuronal cells.

PubMed

Kyttälä, Aija; Ihrke, Gudrun; Vesa, Jouni; Schell, Michael J; Luzio, J Paul

2004-03-01

Batten disease is a neurodegenerative disorder resulting from mutations in CLN3, a polytopic membrane protein, whose predominant intracellular destination in nonneuronal cells is the lysosome. The topology of CLN3 protein, its lysosomal targeting mechanism, and the development of Batten disease are poorly understood. We provide experimental evidence that both the N and C termini and one large loop domain of CLN3 face the cytoplasm. We have identified two lysosomal targeting motifs that mediate the sorting of CLN3 in transfected nonneuronal and neuronal cells: an unconventional motif in the long C-terminal cytosolic tail consisting of a methionine and a glycine separated by nine amino acids [M(X)9G], and a more conventional dileucine motif, located in the large cytosolic loop domain and preceded by an acidic patch. Each motif on its own was sufficient to mediate lysosomal targeting, but optimal efficiency required both. Interestingly, in primary neurons, CLN3 was prominently seen both in lysosomes in the cell body and in endosomes, containing early endosomal antigen-1 along neuronal processes. Because there are few lysosomes in axons and peripheral parts of dendrites, the presence of CLN3 in endosomes of neurons may be functionally important. Endosomal association of the protein was independent of the two lysosomal targeting motifs. PMID:14699076

20. Identification of a SUMO-binding motif that recognizes SUMO-modified proteins

PubMed Central

Song, Jing; Durrin, Linda K.; Wilkinson, Thomas A.; Krontiris, Theodore G.; Chen, Yuan

2004-01-01

Posttranslational modification by the ubiquitin homologue, small ubiquitin-like modifier 1 (SUMO-1), has been established as an important regulatory mechanism. However, in most cases it is not clear how sumoylation regulates various cellular functions. Emerging evidence suggests that sumoylation may play a general role in regulating protein-protein interactions, as shown in RanBP2/Nup358 and RanGAP1 interaction. In this study, we have defined an amino acid sequence motif that binds SUMO. This motif, V/I-X-V/I-V/I, was identified by NMR spectroscopic characterization of interactions among SUMO-1 and peptides derived from proteins that are known to bind SUMO or sumoylated proteins. This motif binds all SUMO paralogues (SUMO-1-3). Using site-directed mutagenesis, we also show that this SUMO-binding motif in RanBP2/Nup358 is responsible for the interaction between RanBP2/Nup358 and sumoylated RanGAP1. The SUMO-binding motif exists in nearly all proteins known to be involved in SUMO-dependent processes, suggesting its general role in sumoylation-dependent cellular functions. PMID:15388847

1. Mechano-chemical selections of two competitive unfolding pathways of a single DNA i-motif

Xu, Yue; Chen, Hu; Qu, Yu-Jie; Artem, K. Efremov; Li, Ming; Ouyang, Zhong-Can; Liu, Dong-Sheng; Yan, Jie

2014-06-01

The DNA i-motif is a quadruplex structure formed in tandem cytosine-rich sequences in slightly acidic conditions. Besides being considered as a building block of DNA nano-devices, it may also play potential roles in regulating chromosome stability and gene transcriptions. The stability of i-motif is crucial for these functions. In this work, we investigated the mechanical stability of a single i-motif formed in the human telomeric sequence 5'-(CCCTAA)3CCC, which revealed a novel pH and loading rate-dependent bimodal unfolding force distribution. Although the cause of the bimodal unfolding force species is not clear, we proposed a phenomenological model involving a direct unfolding favored at lower loading rate or higher pH value, which is subject to competition with another unfolding pathway through a mechanically stable intermediate state whose nature is yet to be determined. Overall, the unique mechano—chemical responses of i-motif-provide a new perspective to its stability, which may be useful to guide designing new i-motif-based DNA mechanical nano-devices.

2. Experimental detection of short regulatory motifs in eukaryotic proteins: tips for good practice as well as for bad.

PubMed

Gibson, Toby J; Dinkel, Holger; Van Roey, Kim; Diella, Francesca

2015-01-01

It has become clear in outline though not yet in detail how cellular regulatory and signalling systems are constructed. The essential machines are protein complexes that effect regulatory decisions by undergoing internal changes of state. Subcomponents of these cellular complexes are assembled into molecular switches. Many of these switches employ one or more short peptide motifs as toggles that can move between one or more sites within the switch system, the simplest being on-off switches. Paradoxically, these motif modules (termed short linear motifs or SLiMs) are both hugely abundant but difficult to research. So despite the many successes in identifying short regulatory protein motifs, it is thought that only the "tip of the iceberg" has been exposed. Experimental and bioinformatic motif discovery remain challenging and error prone. The advice presented in this article is aimed at helping researchers to uncover genuine protein motifs, whilst avoiding the pitfalls that lead to reports of false discovery. PMID:26581338

3. Structural and functional characterization of Cys4 zinc finger motif in the recombination mediator protein RecR.

PubMed

Tang, Qun; Liu, Yan-Ping; Yan, Xiao-Xue; Liang, Dong-Cai

2014-12-01

Zinc finger motif widely exists in protein structure, which can play different roles in different proteins. RecR is an important recombination mediator protein (RMP) in the RecFOR pathway and zinc finger motif is the most conserved domain in RecR protein. However, the function of this zinc finger motif in RecR is unclear. Here, we have studied the structures of the single cysteine and double cysteines mutation within the zinc finger motif in Thermoanaerobacter tengcongensis RecR (TTERecR). We have also studied the DNA binding ability as well as TTERecO protein binding ability of single, double and even triple cysteines mutation of the zinc finger motif, and the mutants do not alter DNA binding by RecR nor the interaction between RecR and RecO. The function of TTERecR zinc finger motif is to maintain the stability of the three-dimensional structure. PMID:25460918

4. How motif environment influences transcription factor search dynamics: Finding a needle in a haystack.

PubMed

Dror, Iris; Rohs, Remo; Mandel-Gutfreund, Yael

2016-07-01

Transcription factors (TFs) have to find their binding sites, which are distributed throughout the genome. Facilitated diffusion is currently the most widely accepted model for this search process. Based on this model the TF alternates between one-dimensional sliding along the DNA, and three-dimensional bulk diffusion. In this view, the non-specific associations between the proteins and the DNA play a major role in the search dynamics. However, little is known about how the DNA properties around the motif contribute to the search. Accumulating evidence showing that TF binding sites are embedded within a unique environment, specific to each TF, leads to the hypothesis that the search process is facilitated by favorable DNA features that help to improve the search efficiency. Here, we review the field and present the hypothesis that TF-DNA recognition is dictated not only by the motif, but is also influenced by the environment in which the motif resides. PMID:27192961

5. The exploration of network motifs as potential drug targets from post-translational regulatory networks.

PubMed

Zhang, Xiao-Dong; Song, Jiangning; Bork, Peer; Zhao, Xing-Ming

2016-02-08

Phosphorylation and proteolysis are among the most common post-translational modifications (PTMs), and play critical roles in various biological processes. More recent discoveries imply that the crosstalks between these two PTMs are involved in many diseases. In this work, we construct a post-translational regulatory network (PTRN) consists of phosphorylation and proteolysis processes, which enables us to investigate the regulatory interplays between these two PTMs. With the PTRN, we identify some functional network motifs that are significantly enriched with drug targets, some of which are further found to contain multiple proteins targeted by combinatorial drugs. These findings imply that the network motifs may be used to predict targets when designing new drugs. Inspired by this, we propose a novel computational approach called NetTar for predicting drug targets using the identified network motifs. Benchmarking results on real data indicate that our approach can be used for accurate prediction of novel proteins targeted by known drugs.

6. CPI motif interaction is necessary for capping protein function in cells

PubMed Central

Edwards, Marc; McConnell, Patrick; Schafer, Dorothy A.; Cooper, John A.

2015-01-01

Capping protein (CP) has critical roles in actin assembly in vivo and in vitro. CP binds with high affinity to the barbed end of actin filaments, blocking the addition and loss of actin subunits. Heretofore, models for actin assembly in cells generally assumed that CP is constitutively active, diffusing freely to find and cap barbed ends. However, CP can be regulated by binding of the ‘capping protein interaction' (CPI) motif, found in a diverse and otherwise unrelated set of proteins that decreases, but does not abolish, the actin-capping activity of CP and promotes uncapping in biochemical experiments. Here, we report that CP localization and the ability of CP to function in cells requires interaction with a CPI-motif-containing protein. Our discovery shows that cells target and/or modulate the capping activity of CP via CPI motif interactions in order for CP to localize and function in cells. PMID:26412145

7. The VQ Motif-Containing Protein Family of Plant-Specific Transcriptional Regulators1

PubMed Central

Jing, Yanjun; Lin, Rongcheng

2015-01-01

The VQ motif-containing proteins (designated as VQ proteins) are a class of plant-specific proteins with a conserved and single short FxxhVQxhTG amino acid sequence motif. VQ proteins regulate diverse developmental processes, including responses to biotic and abiotic stresses, seed development, and photomorphogenesis. In this Update, we summarize and discuss recent advances in our understanding of the regulation and function of VQ proteins and the role of the VQ motif in mediating transcriptional regulation and protein-protein interactions in signaling pathways. Based on the accumulated evidence, we propose a general mechanism of action for the VQ protein family, which likely defines a novel class of transcriptional regulators specific to plants. PMID:26220951

8. Characterization of cytoplasmic motifs important in rhesus rhadinovirus gB processing and trafficking.

PubMed

Lang, Sabine M; Means, Robert E

2010-03-15

Rhesus monkey rhadinovirus (RRV) is highly related to Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV), a human gamma-herpesvirus etiologically-linked with several cancers. Glycoprotein B (gB) homologues are encoded by all herpesviruses and play a role in virus attachment, entry, and in egress. We have found that RRV gB, like KSHV gB, is cleaved at a consensus furin cleavage site and is modified by both N-linked and O-linked glycosylation. Mutagenesis of three tyrosine- based trafficking motifs, a diacidic tyrosine motif, and a di-lucine motif in the cytoplasmic region revealed a role for these sequences in both ER export and endocytosis from the plasma membrane. These experiments provide a basis for further experiments looking at gB incorporation and role in gamma-herpesvirus assembly and egress.

9. Discovery of sequence motifs related to coexpression of genes using evolutionary computation

PubMed Central

Fogel, Gary B.; Weekes, Dana G.; Varga, Gabor; Dow, Ernst R.; Harlow, Harry B.; Onyia, Jude E.; Su, Chen

2004-01-01

Transcription factors are key regulatory elements that control gene expression. Recognition of transcription factor binding site (TFBS) motifs in the upstream region of coexpressed genes is therefore critical towards a true understanding of the regulations of gene expression. The task of discovering eukaryotic TFBSs remains a challenging problem. Here, we demonstrate that evolutionary computation can be used to search for TFBSs in upstream regions of genes known to be coexpressed. Evolutionary computation was used to search for TFBSs of genes regulated by octamer-binding factor and nuclear factor kappa B. The discovered binding sites included experimentally determined known binding motifs as well as lists of putative, previously unknown TFBSs. We believe that this method to search nucleotide sequence information efficiently for similar motifs will be useful for discovering TFBSs that affect gene regulation. PMID:15266008

10. PROMOTIF--a program to identify and analyze structural motifs in proteins.

PubMed Central

Hutchinson, E. G.; Thornton, J. M.

1996-01-01

We describe a suite of programs, PROMOTIF, that analyzes a protein coordinate file and provides details about the structural motifs in the protein. The program currently analyzes the following structural features: secondary structure; beta-and gamma-turns; helical geometry and interactions; beta-strands and beta-sheet topology; beta-bulges; beta-hairpins; beta-alpha-beta units and psi-loops; disulphide bridges; and main-chain hydrogen bonding patterns. PROMOTIF creates postscript files showing the examples of each type of motif in the protein, and a summary page. The program can also be used to compare motifs in a group of related structures, such as an ensemble of NMR structures. PMID:8745398

11. Improved Exact Enumerative Algorithms for the Planted (l, d)-Motif Search Problem.

PubMed

Tanaka, Shunji

2014-01-01

In this paper efficient exact algorithms are proposed for the planted ( l, d)-motif search problem. This problem is to find all motifs of length l that are planted in each input string with at most d mismatches. The "quorum" version of this problem is also treated in this paper to find motifs planted not in all input strings but in at least q input strings. The proposed algorithms are based on the previous algorithms called qPMSPruneI and qPMS7 that traverse a search tree starting from a l-length substring of an input string. To improve these previous algorithms, several techniques are introduced, which contribute to reducing the computation time for the traversal. In computational experiments, it will be shown that the proposed algorithms outperform the previous algorithms.

12. How motif environment influences transcription factor search dynamics: Finding a needle in a haystack.

PubMed

Dror, Iris; Rohs, Remo; Mandel-Gutfreund, Yael

2016-07-01

Transcription factors (TFs) have to find their binding sites, which are distributed throughout the genome. Facilitated diffusion is currently the most widely accepted model for this search process. Based on this model the TF alternates between one-dimensional sliding along the DNA, and three-dimensional bulk diffusion. In this view, the non-specific associations between the proteins and the DNA play a major role in the search dynamics. However, little is known about how the DNA properties around the motif contribute to the search. Accumulating evidence showing that TF binding sites are embedded within a unique environment, specific to each TF, leads to the hypothesis that the search process is facilitated by favorable DNA features that help to improve the search efficiency. Here, we review the field and present the hypothesis that TF-DNA recognition is dictated not only by the motif, but is also influenced by the environment in which the motif resides.

13. PROMOT: a FORTRAN program to scan protein sequences against a library of known motifs.

PubMed

Sternberg, M J

1991-04-01

Information about the three-dimensional structure or function of a newly determined protein sequence can be obtained if the protein is found to contain a characterized motif or pattern of residues. Recently a database (PROSITE) has been established that contains 337 known motifs encoded as a list of allowed residue types at specific positions along the sequence. PROMOT is a FORTRAN computer program that takes a protein sequence and examines if it contains any of the motifs in PROSITE. The program also extends the definitions of patterns beyond those used in PROSITE to provide a simple, yet flexible, method to scan either a PROSITE or a user-defined pattern against a protein sequence database.

14. Classification of protein motifs based on subcellular localization uncovers evolutionary relationships at both sequence and functional levels

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background Most proteins have evolved in specific cellular compartments that limit their functions and potential interactions. On the other hand, motifs define amino acid arrangements conserved between protein family members and represent powerful tools for assigning function to protein sequences. The ideal motif would identify all members of a protein family but in practice many motifs identify both family members and unrelated proteins, referred to as True Positive (TP) and False Positive (FP) sequences, respectively. Results To address the relationship between protein motifs, protein function and cellular localization, we systematically assigned subcellular localization data to motif sequences from the comprehensive PROSITE sequence motif database. Using this data we analyzed relationships between localization and function. We find that TPs and FPs have a strong tendency to localize in different compartments. When multiple localizations are considered, TPs are usually distributed between related cellular compartments. We also identified cases where FPs are concentrated in particular subcellular regions, indicating possible functional or evolutionary relationships with TP sequences of the same motif. Conclusions Our findings suggest that the systematic examination of subcellular localization has the potential to uncover evolutionary and functional relationships between motif-containing sequences. We believe that this type of analysis complements existing motif annotations and could aid in their interpretation. Our results shed light on the evolution of cellular organelles and potentially establish the basis for new subcellular localization and function prediction algorithms. PMID:23865897

15. Mitogen-activated protein kinase 4-like carrying an MEY motif instead of a TXY motif is involved in ozone tolerance and regulation of stomatal closure in tobacco.

PubMed

Yanagawa, Yuki; Yoda, Hiroshi; Osaki, Kohei; Amano, Yuta; Aono, Mitsuko; Seo, Shigemi; Kuchitsu, Kazuyuki; Mitsuhara, Ichiro

2016-05-01

The mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs/MPKs) are important factors in the regulation of signal transduction in response to biotic and abiotic stresses. Previously, we characterized a MAPK from tobacco, Nicotiana tabacum MPK4 (NtMPK4). Here, we found a highly homologous gene, NtMPK4-like (NtMPK4L), in tobacco as well as other species in Solanaceae and Gramineae. Deduced amino acid sequences of their translation products carried MEY motifs instead of conserved TXY motifs of the MAPK family. We isolated the full length NtMPK4L gene and examined the physiological functions of NtMPK4L. We revealed that NtMPK4L was activated by wounding, like NtMPK4. However, a constitutively active salicylic acid-induced protein kinase kinase (SIPKK(EE)), which phosphorylates NtMPK4, did not phosphorylate NtMPK4L. Moreover, a tyrosine residue in the MEY motif was not involved in NtMPK4L activation. We also found that NtMPK4L-silenced plants showed rapid transpiration caused by remarkably open stomata. In addition, NtMPK4L-silenced plants completely lost the ability to close stomata upon ozone treatment and were highly sensitive to ozone, suggesting that this atypical MAPK plays a role in ozone tolerance through stomatal regulation. PMID:27126796

16. The BsaHI restriction-modification system: Cloning, sequencing and analysis of conserved motifs

PubMed Central

Neely, Robert K; Roberts, Richard J

2008-01-01

Background Restriction and modification enzymes typically recognise short DNA sequences of between two and eight bases in length. Understanding the mechanism of this recognition represents a significant challenge that we begin to address for the BsaHI restriction-modification system, which recognises the six base sequence GRCGYC. Results The DNA sequences of the genes for the BsaHI methyltransferase, bsaHIM, and restriction endonuclease, bsaHIR, have been determined (GenBank accession #EU386360), cloned and expressed in E. coli. Both the restriction endonuclease and methyltransferase enzymes share significant similarity with a group of 6 other enzymes comprising the restriction-modification systems HgiDI and HgiGI and the putative HindVP, NlaCORFDP, NpuORFC228P and SplZORFNP restriction-modification systems. A sequence alignment of these homologues shows that their amino acid sequences are largely conserved and highlights several motifs of interest. We target one such conserved motif, reading SPERRFD, at the C-terminal end of the bsaHIR gene. A mutational analysis of these amino acids indicates that the motif is crucial for enzymatic activity. Sequence alignment of the methyltransferase gene reveals a short motif within the target recognition domain that is conserved among enzymes recognising the same sequences. Thus, this motif may be used as a diagnostic tool to define the recognition sequences of the cytosine C5 methyltransferases. Conclusion We have cloned and sequenced the BsaHI restriction and modification enzymes. We have identified a region of the R. BsaHI enzyme that is crucial for its activity. Analysis of the amino acid sequence of the BsaHI methyltransferase enzyme led us to propose two new motifs that can be used in the diagnosis of the recognition sequence of the cytosine C5-methyltransferases. PMID:18479503

17. Stable proline box motif at the N-terminal end of alpha-helices.

PubMed Central

Viguera, A. R.; Serrano, L.

1999-01-01

We describe a novel N-terminal alpha-helix local motif that involves three hydrophobic residues and a Pro residue (Pro-box motif). Database analysis shows that when Pro is the N-cap of an alpha-helix the distribution of amino acids in adjacent positions changes dramatically with respect to the average distribution in an alpha-helix, but not when Pro is at position N1. N-cap Pro residues are usually associated to Ile and Leu, at position N', Val at position N3 and a hydrophobic residue (h) at position N4. The side chain of the N-cap Pro packs against Val, while the hydrophobic residues at positions N' and N4 make favorable interactions. To analyze the role of this putative motif (sequence fingerprint hPXXhh), we have synthesized a series of peptides and analyzed them by circular dichroism (CD) and NMR. We find that this motif is formed in peptides, and that the accompanying hydrophobic interactions contribute up to 1.2 kcal/mol to helix stability. The fact that some of the residues in this fingerprint are not good N-cap and helix formers results in a small overall stabilization of the alpha-helix with respect to other peptides having Gly as the N-cap and Ala at N3 and N4. This suggests that the Pro-box motif will not specially contribute to protein stability but to the specificity of its fold. In fact, 80% of the sequences that contain the fingerprint sequence in the protein database are adopting the described structural motif, and in none of them is the helix extended to place Pro at the more favorable N1 position. PMID:10493574

18. A MOF platform for incorporation of complementary organic motifs for CO2 binding.

PubMed

Deria, Pravas; Li, Song; Zhang, Hongda; Snurr, Randall Q; Hupp, Joseph T; Farha, Omar K

2015-08-11

CO2 capture is essential for reducing the carbon footprint of coal-fired power plants. Here we show, both experimentally and computationally, a new design strategy for capturing CO2 in nanoporous adsorbents. The approach involves 'complementary organic motifs' (COMs), which have a precise alignment of charge densities that is complementary to the CO2 quadrupole. Two promising COMs were post-synthetically incorporated into a robust metal-organic framework (MOF) material using solvent-assisted ligand incorporation (SALI). We demonstrate that these COM-functionalized MOFs exhibit high capacity and selectivity for CO2 relative to other reported motifs. PMID:26145451

19. Pyrimidone-based series of glucokinase activators with alternative donor-acceptor motif.

PubMed

Filipski, Kevin J; Guzman-Perez, Angel; Bian, Jianwei; Perreault, Christian; Aspnes, Gary E; Didiuk, Mary T; Dow, Robert L; Hank, Richard F; Jones, Christopher S; Maguire, Robert J; Tu, Meihua; Zeng, Dongxiang; Liu, Shenping; Knafels, John D; Litchfield, John; Atkinson, Karen; Derksen, David R; Bourbonais, Francis; Gajiwala, Ketan S; Hickey, Michael; Johnson, Theodore O; Humphries, Paul S; Pfefferkorn, Jeffrey A

2013-08-15

Glucokinase activators are a class of experimental agents under investigation as a therapy for Type 2 diabetes mellitus. An X-ray crystal structure of a modestly potent agent revealed the potential to substitute the common heterocyclic amide donor-acceptor motif for a pyridone moiety. We have successfully demonstrated that both pyridone and pyrimidone heterocycles can be used as a potent donor-acceptor substituent. Several sub-micromolar analogs that possess the desired partial activator profile were synthesized and characterized. Unfortunately, the most potent activators suffered from sub-optimal pharmacokinetic properties. Nonetheless, these donor-acceptor motifs may find utility in other glucokinase activator series or beyond.

20. Corannulene-Helicene Hybrids: Chiral π-Systems Comprising Both Bowl and Helical Motifs.

PubMed

Fujikawa, Takao; Preda, Dorin V; Segawa, Yasutomo; Itami, Kenichiro; Scott, Lawrence T

2016-08-19

Two distinct structural elements that render π-systems nonplanar, i.e., geodesic curvature and helical motifs, have been combined into new polyarenes that contain both features. The resultant corannulene-[n]helicenes (n = 5, 6) show unique molecular dynamics in their enantiomerization processes, including inversion motions of both the bowl and the helix. Optical resolution of a corannulene-based skeletally chiral molecule was also achieved for the first time, and the influence of the bowl-motif annulation on the chiroptical properties was investigated. PMID:27490184

1. The Phe-Phe Motif for Peptide Self-Assembly in Nanomedicine.

PubMed

Marchesan, Silvia; Vargiu, Attilio V; Styan, Katie E

2015-01-01

Since its discovery, the Phe-Phe motif has gained in popularity as a minimalist building block to drive the self-assembly of short peptides and their analogues into nanostructures and hydrogels. Molecules based on the Phe-Phe motif have found a range of applications in nanomedicine, from drug delivery and biomaterials to new therapeutic paradigms. Here we discuss the various production methods for this class of compounds, and the characterization, nanomorphologies, and application of their self-assembled nanostructures. We include the most recent findings on their remarkable properties, which hold substantial promise for the creation of the next generation nanomedicines.

2. Inferring transcriptional modules from ChIP-chip, motif and microarray data

PubMed Central

Lemmens, Karen; Dhollander, Thomas; De Bie, Tijl; Monsieurs, Pieter; Engelen, Kristof; Smets, Bart; Winderickx, Joris; De Moor, Bart; Marchal, Kathleen

2006-01-01

'ReMoDiscovery' is an intuitive algorithm to correlate regulatory programs with regulators and corresponding motifs to a set of co-expressed genes. It exploits in a concurrent way three independent data sources: ChIP-chip data, motif information and gene expression profiles. When compared to published module discovery algorithms, ReMoDiscovery is fast and easily tunable. We evaluated our method on yeast data, where it was shown to generate biologically meaningful findings and allowed the prediction of potential novel roles of transcriptional regulators. PMID:16677396

3. The Phe-Phe Motif for Peptide Self-Assembly in Nanomedicine.

PubMed

Marchesan, Silvia; Vargiu, Attilio V; Styan, Katie E

2015-01-01

Since its discovery, the Phe-Phe motif has gained in popularity as a minimalist building block to drive the self-assembly of short peptides and their analogues into nanostructures and hydrogels. Molecules based on the Phe-Phe motif have found a range of applications in nanomedicine, from drug delivery and biomaterials to new therapeutic paradigms. Here we discuss the various production methods for this class of compounds, and the characterization, nanomorphologies, and application of their self-assembled nanostructures. We include the most recent findings on their remarkable properties, which hold substantial promise for the creation of the next generation nanomedicines. PMID:26540034

4. Temporal motifs reveal collaboration patterns in online task-oriented networks.

PubMed

Xuan, Qi; Fang, Huiting; Fu, Chenbo; Filkov, Vladimir

2015-05-01

Real networks feature layers of interactions and complexity. In them, different types of nodes can interact with each other via a variety of events. Examples of this complexity are task-oriented social networks (TOSNs), where teams of people share tasks towards creating a quality artifact, such as academic research papers or software development in commercial or open source environments. Accomplishing those tasks involves both work, e.g., writing the papers or code, and communication, to discuss and coordinate. Taking into account the different types of activities and how they alternate over time can result in much more precise understanding of the TOSNs behaviors and outcomes. That calls for modeling techniques that can accommodate both node and link heterogeneity as well as temporal change. In this paper, we report on methodology for finding temporal motifs in TOSNs, limited to a system of two people and an artifact. We apply the methods to publicly available data of TOSNs from 31 Open Source Software projects. We find that these temporal motifs are enriched in the observed data. When applied to software development outcome, temporal motifs reveal a distinct dependency between collaboration and communication in the code writing process. Moreover, we show that models based on temporal motifs can be used to more precisely relate both individual developer centrality and team cohesion to programmer productivity than models based on aggregated TOSNs.

5. Use of a Probabilistic Motif Search to Identify Histidine Phosphotransfer Domain-Containing Proteins.

PubMed

Surujon, Defne; Ratner, David I

2016-01-01

The wealth of newly obtained proteomic information affords researchers the possibility of searching for proteins of a given structure or function. Here we describe a general method for the detection of a protein domain of interest in any species for which a complete proteome exists. In particular, we apply this approach to identify histidine phosphotransfer (HPt) domain-containing proteins across a range of eukaryotic species. From the sequences of known HPt domains, we created an amino acid occurrence matrix which we then used to define a conserved, probabilistic motif. Examination of various organisms either known to contain (plant and fungal species) or believed to lack (mammals) HPt domains established criteria by which new HPt candidates were identified and ranked. Search results using a probabilistic motif matrix compare favorably with data to be found in several commonly used protein structure/function databases: our method identified all known HPt proteins in the Arabidopsis thaliana proteome, confirmed the absence of such motifs in mice and humans, and suggests new candidate HPts in several organisms. Moreover, probabilistic motif searching can be applied more generally, in a manner both readily customized and computationally compact, to other protein domains; this utility is demonstrated by our identification of histones in a range of eukaryotic organisms. PMID:26751210

6. ATtRACT-a database of RNA-binding proteins and associated motifs.

PubMed

Giudice, Girolamo; Sánchez-Cabo, Fátima; Torroja, Carlos; Lara-Pezzi, Enrique

2016-01-01

RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) play a crucial role in key cellular processes, including RNA transport, splicing, polyadenylation and stability. Understanding the interaction between RBPs and RNA is key to improve our knowledge of RNA processing, localization and regulation in a global manner. Despite advances in recent years, a unified non-redundant resource that includes information on experimentally validated motifs, RBPs and integrated tools to exploit this information is lacking. Here, we developed a database named ATtRACT (available athttp://attract.cnic.es) that compiles information on 370 RBPs and 1583 RBP consensus binding motifs, 192 of which are not present in any other database. To populate ATtRACT we (i) extracted and hand-curated experimentally validated data from CISBP-RNA, SpliceAid-F, RBPDB databases, (ii) integrated and updated the unavailable ASD database and (iii) extracted information from Protein-RNA complexes present in Protein Data Bank database through computational analyses. ATtRACT provides also efficient algorithms to search a specific motif and scan one or more RNA sequences at a time. It also allows discoveringde novomotifs enriched in a set of related sequences and compare them with the motifs included in the database.Database URL:http:// attract. cnic. es. PMID:27055826

7. Nuclear localization of the dehydrin OpsDHN1 is determined by histidine-rich motif.

PubMed

Hernández-Sánchez, Itzell E; Maruri-López, Israel; Ferrando, Alejandro; Carbonell, Juan; Graether, Steffen P; Jiménez-Bremont, Juan F

2015-01-01

The cactus OpsDHN1 dehydrin belongs to a large family of disordered and highly hydrophilic proteins known as Late Embryogenesis Abundant (LEA) proteins, which accumulate during the late stages of embryogenesis and in response to abiotic stresses. Herein, we present the in vivo OpsDHN1 subcellular localization by N-terminal GFP translational fusion; our results revealed a cytoplasmic and nuclear localization of the GFP::OpsDHN1 protein in Nicotiana benthamiana epidermal cells. In addition, dimer assembly of OpsDHN1 in planta using a Bimolecular Fluorescence Complementation (BiFC) approach was demonstrated. In order to understand the in vivo role of the histidine-rich motif, the OpsDHN1-ΔHis version was produced and assayed for its subcellular localization and dimer capability by GFP fusion and BiFC assays, respectively. We found that deletion of the OpsDHN1 histidine-rich motif restricted its localization to cytoplasm, but did not affect dimer formation. In addition, the deletion of the S-segment in the OpsDHN1 protein affected its nuclear localization. Our data suggest that the deletion of histidine-rich motif and S-segment show similar effects, preventing OpsDHN1 from getting into the nucleus. Based on these results, the histidine-rich motif is proposed as a targeting element for OpsDHN1 nuclear localization. PMID:26442018

8. ATtRACT-a database of RNA-binding proteins and associated motifs.

PubMed

Giudice, Girolamo; Sánchez-Cabo, Fátima; Torroja, Carlos; Lara-Pezzi, Enrique

2016-01-01

RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) play a crucial role in key cellular processes, including RNA transport, splicing, polyadenylation and stability. Understanding the interaction between RBPs and RNA is key to improve our knowledge of RNA processing, localization and regulation in a global manner. Despite advances in recent years, a unified non-redundant resource that includes information on experimentally validated motifs, RBPs and integrated tools to exploit this information is lacking. Here, we developed a database named ATtRACT (available athttp://attract.cnic.es) that compiles information on 370 RBPs and 1583 RBP consensus binding motifs, 192 of which are not present in any other database. To populate ATtRACT we (i) extracted and hand-curated experimentally validated data from CISBP-RNA, SpliceAid-F, RBPDB databases, (ii) integrated and updated the unavailable ASD database and (iii) extracted information from Protein-RNA complexes present in Protein Data Bank database through computational analyses. ATtRACT provides also efficient algorithms to search a specific motif and scan one or more RNA sequences at a time. It also allows discoveringde novomotifs enriched in a set of related sequences and compare them with the motifs included in the database.Database URL:http:// attract. cnic. es.

9. Structural motifs recurring in different folds recognize the same ligand fragments

PubMed Central

Ausiello, Gabriele; Gherardini, Pier Federico; Gatti, Elena; Incani, Ottaviano; Helmer-Citterich, Manuela

2009-01-01

Background The structural analysis of protein ligand binding sites can provide information relevant for assigning functions to unknown proteins, to guide the drug discovery process and to infer relations among distant protein folds. Previous approaches to the comparative analysis of binding pockets have usually been focused either on the ligand or the protein component. Even though several useful observations have been made with these approaches they both have limitations. In the former case the analysis is restricted to binding pockets interacting with similar ligands, while in the latter it is difficult to systematically check whether the observed structural similarities have a functional significance. Results Here we propose a novel methodology that takes into account the structure of both the binding pocket and the ligand. We first look for local similarities in a set of binding pockets and then check whether the bound ligands, even if completely different, share a common fragment that can account for the presence of the structural motif. Thanks to this method we can identify structural motifs whose functional significance is explained by the presence of shared features in the interacting ligands. Conclusion The application of this method to a large dataset of binding pockets allows the identification of recurring protein motifs that bind specific ligand fragments, even in the context of molecules with a different overall structure. In addition some of these motifs are present in a high number of evolutionarily unrelated proteins. PMID:19527512

10. Platelet immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motif (ITAM) signaling and vascular integrity.

PubMed

Boulaftali, Yacine; Hess, Paul R; Kahn, Mark L; Bergmeier, Wolfgang

2014-03-28

Platelets are well-known for their critical role in hemostasis, that is, the prevention of blood loss at sites of mechanical vessel injury. Inappropriate platelet activation and adhesion, however, can lead to thrombotic complications, such as myocardial infarction and stroke. To fulfill its role in hemostasis, the platelet is equipped with various G protein-coupled receptors that mediate the response to soluble agonists such as thrombin, ADP, and thromboxane A2. In addition to G protein-coupled receptors, platelets express 3 glycoproteins that belong to the family of immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motif receptors: Fc receptor γ chain, which is noncovalently associated with the glycoprotein VI collagen receptor, C-type lectin 2, the receptor for podoplanin, and Fc receptor γII A, a low-affinity receptor for immune complexes. Although both genetic and chemical approaches have documented a critical role for platelet G protein-coupled receptors in hemostasis, the contribution of immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motif receptors to this process is less defined. Studies performed during the past decade, however, have identified new roles for platelet immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motif signaling in vascular integrity in utero and at sites of inflammation. The purpose of this review is to summarize recent findings on how platelet immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motif signaling controls vascular integrity, both in the presence and absence of mechanical injury. PMID:24677237

11. Viral and Cellular Proteins Containing FGDF Motifs Bind G3BP to Block Stress Granule Formation

PubMed Central

Panas, Marc D.; Schulte, Tim; Thaa, Bastian; Sandalova, Tatiana; Kedersha, Nancy; Achour, Adnane; McInerney, Gerald M.

2015-01-01

The Ras-GAP SH3 domain–binding proteins (G3BP) are essential regulators of the formation of stress granules (SG), cytosolic aggregates of proteins and RNA that are induced upon cellular stress, such as virus infection. Many viruses, including Semliki Forest virus (SFV), block SG induction by targeting G3BP. In this work, we demonstrate that the G3BP-binding motif of SFV nsP3 consists of two FGDF motifs, in which both phenylalanine and the glycine residue are essential for binding. In addition, we show that binding of the cellular G3BP-binding partner USP10 is also mediated by an FGDF motif. Overexpression of wt USP10, but not a mutant lacking the FGDF-motif, blocks SG assembly. Further, we identified FGDF-mediated G3BP binding site in herpes simplex virus (HSV) protein ICP8, and show that ICP8 binding to G3BP also inhibits SG formation, which is a novel function of HSV ICP8. We present a model of the three-dimensional structure of G3BP bound to an FGDF-containing peptide, likely representing a binding mode shared by many proteins to target G3BP. PMID:25658430

12. Motif analysis in directed ordered networks and applications to food webs

PubMed Central

Paulau, Pavel V.; Feenders, Christoph; Blasius, Bernd

2015-01-01

The analysis of small recurrent substructures, so called network motifs, has become a standard tool of complex network science to unveil the design principles underlying the structure of empirical networks. In many natural systems network nodes are associated with an intrinsic property according to which they can be ordered and compared against each other. Here, we expand standard motif analysis to be able to capture the hierarchical structure in such ordered networks. Our new approach is based on the identification of all ordered 3-node substructures and the visualization of their significance profile. We present a technique to calculate the fine grained motif spectrum by resolving the individual members of isomorphism classes (sets of substructures formed by permuting node-order). We apply this technique to computer generated ensembles of ordered networks and to empirical food web data, demonstrating the importance of considering node order for food-web analysis. Our approach may not only be helpful to identify hierarchical patterns in empirical food webs and other natural networks, it may also provide the base for extending motif analysis to other types of multi-layered networks. PMID:26144248

13. Identification of sequence–structure RNA binding motifs for SELEX-derived aptamers

PubMed Central

Hoinka, Jan; Zotenko, Elena; Friedman, Adam; Sauna, Zuben E.; Przytycka, Teresa M.

2012-01-01

Motivation: Systematic Evolution of Ligands by EXponential Enrichment (SELEX) represents a state-of-the-art technology to isolate single-stranded (ribo)nucleic acid fragments, named aptamers, which bind to a molecule (or molecules) of interest via specific structural regions induced by their sequence-dependent fold. This powerful method has applications in designing protein inhibitors, molecular detection systems, therapeutic drugs and antibody replacement among others. However, full understanding and consequently optimal utilization of the process has lagged behind its wide application due to the lack of dedicated computational approaches. At the same time, the combination of SELEX with novel sequencing technologies is beginning to provide the data that will allow the examination of a variety of properties of the selection process. Results: To close this gap we developed, Aptamotif, a computational method for the identification of sequence–structure motifs in SELEX-derived aptamers. To increase the chances of identifying functional motifs, Aptamotif uses an ensemble-based approach. We validated the method using two published aptamer datasets containing experimentally determined motifs of increasing complexity. We were able to recreate the author's findings to a high degree, thus proving the capability of our approach to identify binding motifs in SELEX data. Additionally, using our new experimental dataset, we illustrate the application of Aptamotif to elucidate several properties of the selection process. Contact: przytyck@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, Zuben.Sauna@fda.hhs.gov PMID:22689764

14. Use of a Probabilistic Motif Search to Identify Histidine Phosphotransfer Domain-Containing Proteins

PubMed Central

Surujon, Defne; Ratner, David I.

2016-01-01

The wealth of newly obtained proteomic information affords researchers the possibility of searching for proteins of a given structure or function. Here we describe a general method for the detection of a protein domain of interest in any species for which a complete proteome exists. In particular, we apply this approach to identify histidine phosphotransfer (HPt) domain-containing proteins across a range of eukaryotic species. From the sequences of known HPt domains, we created an amino acid occurrence matrix which we then used to define a conserved, probabilistic motif. Examination of various organisms either known to contain (plant and fungal species) or believed to lack (mammals) HPt domains established criteria by which new HPt candidates were identified and ranked. Search results using a probabilistic motif matrix compare favorably with data to be found in several commonly used protein structure/function databases: our method identified all known HPt proteins in the Arabidopsis thaliana proteome, confirmed the absence of such motifs in mice and humans, and suggests new candidate HPts in several organisms. Moreover, probabilistic motif searching can be applied more generally, in a manner both readily customized and computationally compact, to other protein domains; this utility is demonstrated by our identification of histones in a range of eukaryotic organisms. PMID:26751210

15. Platelet immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motif (ITAM) signaling and vascular integrity.

PubMed

Boulaftali, Yacine; Hess, Paul R; Kahn, Mark L; Bergmeier, Wolfgang

2014-03-28

Platelets are well-known for their critical role in hemostasis, that is, the prevention of blood loss at sites of mechanical vessel injury. Inappropriate platelet activation and adhesion, however, can lead to thrombotic complications, such as myocardial infarction and stroke. To fulfill its role in hemostasis, the platelet is equipped with various G protein-coupled receptors that mediate the response to soluble agonists such as thrombin, ADP, and thromboxane A2. In addition to G protein-coupled receptors, platelets express 3 glycoproteins that belong to the family of immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motif receptors: Fc receptor γ chain, which is noncovalently associated with the glycoprotein VI collagen receptor, C-type lectin 2, the receptor for podoplanin, and Fc receptor γII A, a low-affinity receptor for immune complexes. Although both genetic and chemical approaches have documented a critical role for platelet G protein-coupled receptors in hemostasis, the contribution of immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motif receptors to this process is less defined. Studies performed during the past decade, however, have identified new roles for platelet immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motif signaling in vascular integrity in utero and at sites of inflammation. The purpose of this review is to summarize recent findings on how platelet immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motif signaling controls vascular integrity, both in the presence and absence of mechanical injury.

16. Electronically addressable nanomechanical switching of i-motif DNA origami assembled on basal plane HOPG.

PubMed

Campos, R; Zhang, S; Majikes, J M; Ferraz, L C C; LaBean, T H; Dong, M D; Ferapontova, E E

2015-09-25

Here, a pH-induced nanomechanical switching of i-motif structures incorporated into DNA origami bound onto cysteamine-modified basal plane HOPG was electronically addressed, demonstrating for the first time the electrochemical read-out of the nanomechanics of DNA origami. This paves the way for construction of electrode-integrated bioelectronic nanodevices exploiting DNA origami patterns on conductive supports.

17. Motif analysis in directed ordered networks and applications to food webs.

PubMed

Paulau, Pavel V; Feenders, Christoph; Blasius, Bernd

2015-01-01

The analysis of small recurrent substructures, so called network motifs, has become a standard tool of complex network science to unveil the design principles underlying the structure of empirical networks. In many natural systems network nodes are associated with an intrinsic property according to which they can be ordered and compared against each other. Here, we expand standard motif analysis to be able to capture the hierarchical structure in such ordered networks. Our new approach is based on the identification of all ordered 3-node substructures and the visualization of their significance profile. We present a technique to calculate the fine grained motif spectrum by resolving the individual members of isomorphism classes (sets of substructures formed by permuting node-order). We apply this technique to computer generated ensembles of ordered networks and to empirical food web data, demonstrating the importance of considering node order for food-web analysis. Our approach may not only be helpful to identify hierarchical patterns in empirical food webs and other natural networks, it may also provide the base for extending motif analysis to other types of multi-layered networks.

18. Using machine learning to predict gene expression and discover sequence motifs

Li, Xuejing

Recently, large amounts of experimental data for complex biological systems have become available. We use tools and algorithms from machine learning to build data-driven predictive models. We first present a novel algorithm to discover gene sequence motifs associated with temporal expression patterns of genes. Our algorithm, which is based on partial least squares (PLS) regression, is able to directly model the flow of information, from gene sequence to gene expression, to learn cis regulatory motifs and characterize associated gene expression patterns. Our algorithm outperforms traditional computational methods e.g. clustering in motif discovery. We then present a study of extending a machine learning model for transcriptional regulation predictive of genetic regulatory response to Caenorhabditis elegans. We show meaningful results both in terms of prediction accuracy on the test experiments and biological information extracted from the regulatory program. The model discovers DNA binding sites ab initio. We also present a case study where we detect a signal of lineage-specific regulation. Finally we present a comparative study on learning predictive models for motif discovery, based on different boosting algorithms: Adaptive Boosting (AdaBoost), Linear Programming Boosting (LPBoost) and Totally Corrective Boosting (TotalBoost). We evaluate and compare the performance of the three boosting algorithms via both statistical and biological validation, for hypoxia response in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

19. [Conserved motifs in the primary and secondary ITS1 structures in bryophytes].

PubMed

Milyutina, I A; Ignatov, M S

2015-01-01

A study of the ITS1 nucleotide sequences of 1000 moss species of 62 families, 11 liverwort species from five orders, and one hornwort Anthoceros agrestis identified five highly conserved motifs (CM1-CM5), which are presumably involved in pre-rRNA processing. Although the ITS1 sequences substantially differ in length and the extent of divergence, the conserved motifs are found in all of them. ITS1 secondary structures were constructed for 76 mosses, and main regularities at conserved motif positioning were observed. The positions of processing sites in the ITS1 secondary structure of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae were found to be similar to the positions of the conserved motifs in the ITS1 secondary structures of mosses and liverworts. In addition, a potential hairpin formation in the putative secondary structure of a pre-rRNA fragment was considered for the region between ITS1 CM4-CM5 and a highly conserved region between hairpins 49 and 50 (H49 and H50) of the 18S rRNA.

20. Conserved sequence motifs among bacterial, eukaryotic, and archaeal phosphatases that define a new phosphohydrolase superfamily.

PubMed

Thaller, M C; Schippa, S; Rossolini, G M

1998-07-01

Members of a new molecular family of bacterial nonspecific acid phosphatases (NSAPs), indicated as class C, were found to share significant sequence similarities to bacterial class B NSAPs and to some plant acid phosphatases, representing the first example of a family of bacterial NSAPs that has a relatively close eukaryotic counterpart. Despite the lack of an overall similarity, conserved sequence motifs were also identified among the above enzyme families (class B and class C bacterial NSAPs, and related plant phosphatases) and several other families of phosphohydrolases, including bacterial phosphoglycolate phosphatases, histidinol-phosphatase domains of the bacterial bifunctional enzymes imidazole-glycerolphosphate dehydratases, and bacterial, eukaryotic, and archaeal phosphoserine phosphatases and threalose-6-phosphatases. These conserved motifs are clustered within two domains, separated by a variable spacer region, according to the pattern [FILMAVT]-D-[ILFRMVY]-D-[GSNDE]-[TV]-[ILVAM]-[AT S VILMC]-X-¿YFWHKR)-X-¿YFWHNQ¿-X( 102,191)-¿KRHNQ¿-G-D-¿FYWHILVMC¿-¿QNH¿-¿FWYGP¿-D -¿PSNQYW¿. The dephosphorylating activity common to all these proteins supports the definition of this phosphatase motif and the inclusion of these enzymes into a superfamily of phosphohydrolases that we propose to indicate as "DDDD" after the presence of the four invariant aspartate residues. Database searches retrieved various hypothetical proteins of unknown function containing this or similar motifs, for which a phosphohydrolase activity could be hypothesized.

1. Crystal structure of SEL1L: Insight into the roles of SLR motifs in ERAD pathway

PubMed Central

Jeong, Hanbin; Sim, Hyo Jung; Song, Eun Kyung; Lee, Hakbong; Ha, Sung Chul; Jun, Youngsoo; Park, Tae Joo; Lee, Changwook

2016-01-01

Terminally misfolded proteins are selectively recognized and cleared by the endoplasmic reticulum-associated degradation (ERAD) pathway. SEL1L, a component of the ERAD machinery, plays an important role in selecting and transporting ERAD substrates for degradation. We have determined the crystal structure of the mouse SEL1L central domain comprising five Sel1-Like Repeats (SLR motifs 5 to 9; hereafter called SEL1Lcent). Strikingly, SEL1Lcent forms a homodimer with two-fold symmetry in a head-to-tail manner. Particularly, the SLR motif 9 plays an important role in dimer formation by adopting a domain-swapped structure and providing an extensive dimeric interface. We identified that the full-length SEL1L forms a self-oligomer through the SEL1Lcent domain in mammalian cells. Furthermore, we discovered that the SLR-C, comprising SLR motifs 10 and 11, of SEL1L directly interacts with the N-terminus luminal loops of HRD1. Therefore, we propose that certain SLR motifs of SEL1L play a unique role in membrane bound ERAD machinery. PMID:27064360

2. Viral and cellular proteins containing FGDF motifs bind G3BP to block stress granule formation.

PubMed

Panas, Marc D; Schulte, Tim; Thaa, Bastian; Sandalova, Tatiana; Kedersha, Nancy; Achour, Adnane; McInerney, Gerald M

2015-02-01

The Ras-GAP SH3 domain-binding proteins (G3BP) are essential regulators of the formation of stress granules (SG), cytosolic aggregates of proteins and RNA that are induced upon cellular stress, such as virus infection. Many viruses, including Semliki Forest virus (SFV), block SG induction by targeting G3BP. In this work, we demonstrate that the G3BP-binding motif of SFV nsP3 consists of two FGDF motifs, in which both phenylalanine and the glycine residue are essential for binding. In addition, we show that binding of the cellular G3BP-binding partner USP10 is also mediated by an FGDF motif. Overexpression of wt USP10, but not a mutant lacking the FGDF-motif, blocks SG assembly. Further, we identified FGDF-mediated G3BP binding site in herpes simplex virus (HSV) protein ICP8, and show that ICP8 binding to G3BP also inhibits SG formation, which is a novel function of HSV ICP8. We present a model of the three-dimensional structure of G3BP bound to an FGDF-containing peptide, likely representing a binding mode shared by many proteins to target G3BP.

3. Dipeptide frequency/bias analysis identifies conserved sites of nonrandomness shared by cysteine-rich motifs.

PubMed

Campion, S R; Ameen, A S; Lai, L; King, J M; Munzenmaier, T N

2001-08-15

This report describes the application of a simple computational tool, AAPAIR.TAB, for the systematic analysis of the cysteine-rich EGF, Sushi, and Laminin motif/sequence families at the two-amino acid level. Automated dipeptide frequency/bias analysis detects preferences in the distribution of amino acids in established protein families, by determining which "ordered dipeptides" occur most frequently in comprehensive motif-specific sequence data sets. Graphic display of the dipeptide frequency/bias data revealed family-specific preferences for certain dipeptides, but more importantly detected a shared preference for employment of the ordered dipeptides Gly-Tyr (GY) and Gly-Phe (GF) in all three protein families. The dipeptide Asn-Gly (NG) also exhibited high-frequency and bias in the EGF and Sushi motif families, whereas Asn-Thr (NT) was distinguished in the Laminin family. Evaluation of the distribution of dipeptides identified by frequency/bias analysis subsequently revealed the highly restricted localization of the G(F/Y) and N(G/T) sequence elements at two separate sites of extreme conservation in the consensus sequence of all three sequence families. The similar employment of the high-frequency/bias dipeptides in three distinct protein sequence families was further correlated with the concurrence of these shared molecular determinants at similar positions within the distinctive scaffolds of three structurally divergent, but similarly employed, motif modules.

4. Rate Motifs Tune Auxin/Indole-3-Acetic Acid Degradation Dynamics1[OPEN

PubMed Central

Moss, Britney L.; Mao, Haibin; Guseman, Jessica M.; Hinds, Thomas R.; Hellmuth, Antje; Kovenock, Marlies; Noorassa, Anisa; Lanctot, Amy; Villalobos, Luz Irina A. Calderón; Zheng, Ning; Nemhauser, Jennifer L.

2015-01-01

Ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation is a common feature in diverse plant cell signaling pathways; however, the factors that control the dynamics of regulated protein turnover are largely unknown. One of the best-characterized families of E3 ubiquitin ligases facilitates ubiquitination of auxin (aux)/indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) repressor proteins in the presence of auxin. Rates of auxin-induced degradation vary widely within the Aux/IAA family, and sequences outside of the characterized degron (the minimum region required for auxin-induced degradation) can accelerate or decelerate degradation. We have used synthetic auxin degradation assays in yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) and in plants to characterize motifs flanking the degron that contribute to tuning the dynamics of Aux/IAA degradation. The presence of these rate motifs is conserved in phylogenetically distant members of the Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) Aux/IAA family, as well as in their putative Brassica rapa orthologs. We found that rate motifs can act by enhancing interaction between repressors and the E3, but that this is not the only mechanism of action. Phenotypes of transgenic plants expressing a deletion in a rate motif in IAA28 resembled plants expressing degron mutations, underscoring the functional relevance of Aux/IAA degradation dynamics in regulating auxin responses. PMID:26149575

5. Bioinformatics analysis of biomarkers and transcriptional factor motifs in Down syndrome.

PubMed

Kong, X D; Liu, N; Xu, X J

2014-10-01

In this study, biomarkers and transcriptional factor motifs were identified in order to investigate the etiology and phenotypic severity of Down syndrome. GSE 1281, GSE 1611, and GSE 5390 were downloaded from the gene expression ominibus (GEO). A robust multiarray analysis (RMA) algorithm was applied to detect differentially expressed genes (DEGs). In order to screen for biological pathways and to interrogate the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway database, the database for annotation, visualization, and integrated discovery (DAVID) was used to carry out a gene ontology (GO) function enrichment for DEGs. Finally, a transcriptional regulatory network was constructed, and a hypergeometric distribution test was applied to select for significantly enriched transcriptional factor motifs. CBR1, DYRK1A, HMGN1, ITSN1, RCAN1, SON, TMEM50B, and TTC3 were each up-regulated two-fold in Down syndrome samples compared to normal samples; of these, SON and TTC3 were newly reported. CBR1, DYRK1A, HMGN1, ITSN1, RCAN1, SON, TMEM50B, and TTC3 were located on human chromosome 21 (mouse chromosome 16). The DEGs were significantly enriched in macromolecular complex subunit organization and focal adhesion pathways. Eleven significantly enriched transcription factor motifs (PAX5, EGR1, XBP1, SREBP1, OLF1, MZF1, NFY, NFKAPPAB, MYCMAX, NFE2, and RP58) were identified. The DEGs and transcription factor motifs identified in our study provide biomarkers for the understanding of Down syndrome pathogenesis and progression. PMID:25118625

6. DNA-binding motif and target genes of the imprinted transcription factor PEG3

PubMed Central

Thiaville, Michelle M.; Huang, Jennifer M.; Kim, Hana; Ekram, Muhammad B.; Roh, Tae-Young; Kim, Joomyeong

2012-01-01

The Peg3 gene is expressed only from the paternally inherited allele located on proximal mouse chromosome 7. The PEG3 protein encoded by this imprinted gene is predicted to bind DNA based on its multiple zinc finger motifs and nuclear localization. In the current study, we demonstrated PEG3’s DNA-binding ability by characterizing its binding motif and target genes. We successfully identified target regions bound by PEG3 from mouse brain extracts using chromatin immunoprecipitation analysis. PEG3 was demonstrated to bind these candidate regions through the consensus DNA-binding motif AGTnnCnnnTGGCT. In vitro promoter assays established that PEG3 controls the expression of a given gene through this motif. Consistent with these observations, the transcriptional levels of a subset of the target genes are also affected in a mutant mouse model with reduced levels of PEG3 protein. Overall, these results confirm PEG3 as a DNA-binding protein controlling specific target genes that are involved in distinct cellular functions. PMID:23078764

7. Position Weight Matrix, Gibbs Sampler, and the Associated Significance Tests in Motif Characterization and Prediction

PubMed Central

Xia, Xuhua

2012-01-01

Position weight matrix (PWM) is not only one of the most widely used bioinformatic methods, but also a key component in more advanced computational algorithms (e.g., Gibbs sampler) for characterizing and discovering motifs in nucleotide or amino acid sequences. However, few generally applicable statistical tests are available for evaluating the significance of site patterns, PWM, and PWM scores (PWMS) of putative motifs. Statistical significance tests of the PWM output, that is, site-specific frequencies, PWM itself, and PWMS, are in disparate sources and have never been collected in a single paper, with the consequence that many implementations of PWM do not include any significance test. Here I review PWM-based methods used in motif characterization and prediction (including a detailed illustration of the Gibbs sampler for de novo motif discovery), present statistical and probabilistic rationales behind statistical significance tests relevant to PWM, and illustrate their application with real data. The multiple comparison problem associated with the test of site-specific frequencies is best handled by false discovery rate methods. The test of PWM, due to the use of pseudocounts, is best done by resampling methods. The test of individual PWMS for each sequence segment should be based on the extreme value distribution. PMID:24278755

8. Roles of conserved proline and glycosyltransferase motifs of EmbC in biosynthesis of lipoarabinomannan.

PubMed

Berg, Stefan; Starbuck, James; Torrelles, Jordi B; Vissa, Varalakshmi D; Crick, Dean C; Chatterjee, Delphi; Brennan, Patrick J

2005-02-18

D-Arabinans, composed of D-arabinofuranose (D-Araf), dominate the structure of mycobacterial cell walls in two settings, as part of lipoarabinomannan (LAM) and arabinogalactan, each with markedly different structures and functions. Little is known of the complexity of their biosynthesis. beta-D-Arabinofuranosyl-1-monophosphoryldecaprenol is the only known sugar donor. EmbA, EmbB, and EmbC, products of the paralogous genes embA, embB, and embC, the sites of resistance to the anti-tuberculosis drug ethambutol (EMB), are the only known implicated enzymes. EmbA and -B apparently contribute to the synthesis of arabinogalactan, whereas EmbC is reserved for the synthesis of LAM. The Emb proteins show no overall similarity to any known proteins beyond Mycobacterium and related genera. However, functional motifs, equivalent to a proline-rich motif of several bacterial polysaccharide co-polymerases and a superfamily of glycosyltransferases, were found. Site-directed mutagenesis in glycosyltransferase superfamily C resulted in complete ablation of LAM synthesis. Point mutations in three amino acids of the proline motif of EmbC resulted in marked reduction of LAM-arabinan synthesis and accumulation of an unknown intermediate and of the known precursor lipomannan. Yet the pattern of the differently linked d-Araf units observed in wild type LAM-arabinan was largely retained in the proline motif mutants. The results allow for the presentation of a unique model of arabinan synthesis. PMID:15546869

9. Analysis of tetra- and hepta-nucleotides motifs promoting -1 ribosomal frameshifting in Escherichia coli

PubMed Central

Sharma, Virag; Prère, Marie-Françoise; Canal, Isabelle; Firth, Andrew E.; Atkins, John F.; Baranov, Pavel V.; Fayet, Olivier

2014-01-01

Programmed ribosomal -1 frameshifting is a non-standard decoding process occurring when ribosomes encounter a signal embedded in the mRNA of certain eukaryotic and prokaryotic genes. This signal has a mandatory component, the frameshift motif: it is either a Z_ZZN tetramer or a X_XXZ_ZZN heptamer (where ZZZ and XXX are three identical nucleotides) allowing cognate or near-cognate repairing to the -1 frame of the A site or A and P sites tRNAs. Depending on the signal, the frameshifting frequency can vary over a wide range, from less than 1% to more than 50%. The present study combines experimental and bioinformatics approaches to carry out (i) a systematic analysis of the frameshift propensity of all possible motifs (16 Z_ZZN tetramers and 64 X_XXZ_ZZN heptamers) in Escherichia coli and (ii) the identification of genes potentially using this mode of expression amongst 36 Enterobacteriaceae genomes. While motif efficiency varies widely, a major distinctive rule of bacterial -1 frameshifting is that the most efficient motifs are those allowing cognate re-pairing of the A site tRNA from ZZN to ZZZ. The outcome of the genomic search is a set of 69 gene clusters, 59 of which constitute new candidates for functional utilization of -1 frameshifting. PMID:24875478

10. [Conserved motifs in the primary and secondary ITS1 structures in bryophytes].

PubMed

Milyutina, I A; Ignatov, M S

2015-01-01

A study of the ITS1 nucleotide sequences of 1000 moss species of 62 families, 11 liverwort species from five orders, and one hornwort Anthoceros agrestis identified five highly conserved motifs (CM1-CM5), which are presumably involved in pre-rRNA processing. Although the ITS1 sequences substantially differ in length and the extent of divergence, the conserved motifs are found in all of them. ITS1 secondary structures were constructed for 76 mosses, and main regularities at conserved motif positioning were observed. The positions of processing sites in the ITS1 secondary structure of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae were found to be similar to the positions of the conserved motifs in the ITS1 secondary structures of mosses and liverworts. In addition, a potential hairpin formation in the putative secondary structure of a pre-rRNA fragment was considered for the region between ITS1 CM4-CM5 and a highly conserved region between hairpins 49 and 50 (H49 and H50) of the 18S rRNA. PMID:26107892

11. Rate Motifs Tune Auxin/Indole-3-Acetic Acid Degradation Dynamics.

PubMed

Moss, Britney L; Mao, Haibin; Guseman, Jessica M; Hinds, Thomas R; Hellmuth, Antje; Kovenock, Marlies; Noorassa, Anisa; Lanctot, Amy; Villalobos, Luz Irina A Calderón; Zheng, Ning; Nemhauser, Jennifer L

2015-09-01

Ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation is a common feature in diverse plant cell signaling pathways; however, the factors that control the dynamics of regulated protein turnover are largely unknown. One of the best-characterized families of E3 ubiquitin ligases facilitates ubiquitination of auxin (aux)/indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) repressor proteins in the presence of auxin. Rates of auxin-induced degradation vary widely within the Aux/IAA family, and sequences outside of the characterized degron (the minimum region required for auxin-induced degradation) can accelerate or decelerate degradation. We have used synthetic auxin degradation assays in yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) and in plants to characterize motifs flanking the degron that contribute to tuning the dynamics of Aux/IAA degradation. The presence of these rate motifs is conserved in phylogenetically distant members of the Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) Aux/IAA family, as well as in their putative Brassica rapa orthologs. We found that rate motifs can act by enhancing interaction between repressors and the E3, but that this is not the only mechanism of action. Phenotypes of transgenic plants expressing a deletion in a rate motif in IAA28 resembled plants expressing degron mutations, underscoring the functional relevance of Aux/IAA degradation dynamics in regulating auxin responses.

12. The HET-S/s Prion Motif in the Control of Programmed Cell Death.

PubMed

Riek, Roland; Saupe, Sven J

2016-01-01

The [Het-s] prion of the fungus Podospora anserina is a well-studied model system to elucidate the action of prions and beyond. The [Het-s] prion works as an activation trigger of a cell death execution protein termed HET-S. Amyloid transconformation of the prion-forming region of HET-S induces activation of its pore-forming cell death execution HeLo domain. The prion motif functions in a signal transduction process by which a nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain (NOD)-like receptor termed NWD2 controls the HET-S cell death effector. This prion motif thus corresponds to a functional amyloid motif, allowing a conformational crosstalk between homologous motif domains in signal transduction processes that appears to be widespread from the fungal to the mammalian animal kingdoms. This review aims to establish a structure-activity relationship of the HET-S/s prion system and sets it in the context of its wider biological significance. PMID:27352624

13. The extended AT-hook is a novel RNA binding motif

PubMed Central

Filarsky, Michael; Zillner, Karina; Araya, Ingrid; Villar-Garea, Ana; Merkl, Rainer; Längst, Gernot; Németh, Attila

2015-01-01

The AT-hook has been defined as a DNA binding peptide motif that contains a glycine-arginine-proline (G-R-P) tripeptide core flanked by basic amino acids. Recent reports documented variations in the sequence of AT-hooks and revealed RNA binding activity of some canonical AT-hooks, suggesting a higher structural and functional variability of this protein domain than previously anticipated. Here we describe the discovery and characterization of the extended AT-hook peptide motif (eAT-hook), in which basic amino acids appear symmetrical mainly at a distance of 12–15 amino acids from the G-R-P core. We identified 80 human and 60 mouse eAT-hook proteins and biochemically characterized the eAT-hooks of Tip5/BAZ2A, PTOV1 and GPBP1. Microscale thermophoresis and electrophoretic mobility shift assays reveal the nucleic acid binding features of this peptide motif, and show that eAT-hooks bind RNA with one order of magnitude higher affinity than DNA. In addition, cellular localization studies suggest a role for the N-terminal eAT-hook of PTOV1 in nucleocytoplasmic shuttling. In summary, our findings classify the eAT-hook as a novel nucleic acid binding motif, which potentially mediates various RNA-dependent cellular processes. PMID:26156556

14. A Conserved Upstream Motif Orchestrates Autonomous, Germline-Enriched Expression of Caenorhabditis elegans piRNAs

PubMed Central

Day, Amanda M.; Chun, Sang Young; Khivansara, Vishal; Kim, John K.

2013-01-01

Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) fulfill a critical, conserved role in defending the genome against foreign genetic elements. In many organisms, piRNAs appear to be derived from processing of a long, polycistronic RNA precursor. Here, we establish that each Caenorhabditis elegans piRNA represents a tiny, autonomous transcriptional unit. Remarkably, the minimal C. elegans piRNA cassette requires only a 21 nucleotide (nt) piRNA sequence and an ∼50 nt upstream motif with limited genomic context for expression. Combining computational analyses with a novel, in vivo transgenic system, we demonstrate that this upstream motif is necessary for independent expression of a germline-enriched, Piwi-dependent piRNA. We further show that a single nucleotide position within this motif directs differential germline enrichment. Accordingly, over 70% of C. elegans piRNAs are selectively expressed in male or female germline, and comparison of the genes they target suggests that these two populations have evolved independently. Together, our results indicate that C. elegans piRNA upstream motifs act as independent promoters to specify which sequences are expressed as piRNAs, how abundantly they are expressed, and in what germline. As the genome encodes well over 15,000 unique piRNA sequences, our study reveals that the number of transcriptional units encoding piRNAs rivals the number of mRNA coding genes in the C. elegans genome. PMID:23516384

15. TFBSshape: a motif database for DNA shape features of transcription factor binding sites

PubMed Central

Yang, Lin; Zhou, Tianyin; Dror, Iris; Mathelier, Anthony; Wasserman, Wyeth W.; Gordân, Raluca; Rohs, Remo

2014-01-01

Transcription factor binding sites (TFBSs) are most commonly characterized by the nucleotide preferences at each position of the DNA target. Whereas these sequence motifs are quite accurate descriptions of DNA binding specificities of transcription factors (TFs), proteins recognize DNA as a three-dimensional object. DNA structural features refine the description of TF binding specificities and provide mechanistic insights into protein–DNA recognition. Existing motif databases contain extensive nucleotide sequences identified in binding experiments based on their selection by a TF. To utilize DNA shape information when analysing the DNA binding specificities of TFs, we developed a new tool, the TFBSshape database (available at http://rohslab.cmb.usc.edu/TFBSshape/), for calculating DNA structural features from nucleotide sequences provided by motif databases. The TFBSshape database can be used to generate heat maps and quantitative data for DNA structural features (i.e., minor groove width, roll, propeller twist and helix twist) for 739 TF datasets from 23 different species derived from the motif databases JASPAR and UniPROBE. As demonstrated for the basic helix-loop-helix and homeodomain TF families, our TFBSshape database can be used to compare, qualitatively and quantitatively, the DNA binding specificities of closely related TFs and, thus, uncover differential DNA binding specificities that are not apparent from nucleotide sequence alone. PMID:24214955

16. Temporal motifs reveal collaboration patterns in online task-oriented networks.

PubMed

Xuan, Qi; Fang, Huiting; Fu, Chenbo; Filkov, Vladimir

2015-05-01

Real networks feature layers of interactions and complexity. In them, different types of nodes can interact with each other via a variety of events. Examples of this complexity are task-oriented social networks (TOSNs), where teams of people share tasks towards creating a quality artifact, such as academic research papers or software development in commercial or open source environments. Accomplishing those tasks involves both work, e.g., writing the papers or code, and communication, to discuss and coordinate. Taking into account the different types of activities and how they alternate over time can result in much more precise understanding of the TOSNs behaviors and outcomes. That calls for modeling techniques that can accommodate both node and link heterogeneity as well as temporal change. In this paper, we report on methodology for finding temporal motifs in TOSNs, limited to a system of two people and an artifact. We apply the methods to publicly available data of TOSNs from 31 Open Source Software projects. We find that these temporal motifs are enriched in the observed data. When applied to software development outcome, temporal motifs reveal a distinct dependency between collaboration and communication in the code writing process. Moreover, we show that models based on temporal motifs can be used to more precisely relate both individual developer centrality and team cohesion to programmer productivity than models based on aggregated TOSNs. PMID:26066218

17. Analysis of tetra- and hepta-nucleotides motifs promoting -1 ribosomal frameshifting in Escherichia coli.

PubMed

Sharma, Virag; Prère, Marie-Françoise; Canal, Isabelle; Firth, Andrew E; Atkins, John F; Baranov, Pavel V; Fayet, Olivier

2014-06-01

Programmed ribosomal -1 frameshifting is a non-standard decoding process occurring when ribosomes encounter a signal embedded in the mRNA of certain eukaryotic and prokaryotic genes. This signal has a mandatory component, the frameshift motif: it is either a Z_ZZN tetramer or a X_XXZ_ZZN heptamer (where ZZZ and XXX are three identical nucleotides) allowing cognate or near-cognate repairing to the -1 frame of the A site or A and P sites tRNAs. Depending on the signal, the frameshifting frequency can vary over a wide range, from less than 1% to more than 50%. The present study combines experimental and bioinformatics approaches to carry out (i) a systematic analysis of the frameshift propensity of all possible motifs (16 Z_ZZN tetramers and 64 X_XXZ_ZZN heptamers) in Escherichia coli and (ii) the identification of genes potentially using this mode of expression amongst 36 Enterobacteriaceae genomes. While motif efficiency varies widely, a major distinctive rule of bacterial -1 frameshifting is that the most efficient motifs are those allowing cognate re-pairing of the A site tRNA from ZZN to ZZZ. The outcome of the genomic search is a set of 69 gene clusters, 59 of which constitute new candidates for functional utilization of -1 frameshifting. PMID:24875478

18. A single thiazole orange molecule forms an exciplex in a DNA i-motif.

PubMed

Xu, Baochang; Wu, Xiangyang; Yeow, Edwin K L; Shao, Fangwei

2014-06-18

A fluorescent exciplex of thiazole orange (TO) is formed in a single-dye conjugated DNA i-motif. The exciplex fluorescence exhibits a large Stokes shift, high quantum yield, robust response to pH oscillation and little structural disturbance to the DNA quadruplex, which can be used to monitor the folding of high-order DNA structures.

19. Functional importance of motif I of pseudouridine synthases: mutagenesis of aligned lysine and proline residues.

PubMed

Spedaliere, C J; Hamilton, C S; Mueller, E G

2000-08-01

On the basis of sequence alignments, the pseudouridine synthases were grouped into four families that share no statistically significant global sequence similarity, though some common sequence motifs were discovered [Koonin, E. V. (1996) Nucleic Acids. Res. 24, 2411-2415; Gustafsson, C., Reid, R., Greene, P. J., and Santi, D. V. (1996) Nucleic Acids Res. 24, 3756-3762]. We have investigated the functional significance of these alignments by substituting the nearly invariant lysine and proline residues in Motif I of RluA and TruB, pseudouridine synthases belonging to different families. Contrary to our expectations, the altered enzymes display only very mild kinetic impairment. Substitution of the aligned lysine and proline residues does, however, reduce structural stability, consistent with a temperature sensitive phenotype that results from substitution of the cognate proline residue in Cbf5p, a yeast homologue of TruB [Zerbarjadian, Y., King, T., Fournier, M. J., Clarke, L., and Carbon, J. (1999) Mol. Cell. Biol. 19, 7461-7472]. Together, our data support a functional role for Motif I, as predicted by sequence alignments, though the effect of substituting the highly conserved residues was milder than we anticipated. By extrapolation, our findings also support the assignment of pseudouridine synthase function to certain physiologically important eukaryotic proteins that contain Motif I, including the human protein dyskerin, alteration of which leads to the disease dyskeratosis congenita.

20. Application of motif-based tools on evolutionary analysis of multipartite single-stranded DNA viruses.

PubMed

Wang, Hsiang-Iu; Chang, Chih-Hung; Lin, Po-Heng; Fu, Hui-Chuan; Tang, Chuanyi; Yeh, Hsin-Hung

2013-01-01

Multipartite viruses contain more than one distinctive genome component, and the origin of multipartite viruses has been suggested to evolve from a non-segmented wild-type virus. To explore whether recombination also plays a role in the evolution of the genomes of multipartite viruses, we developed a systematic approach that employs motif-finding tools to detect conserved motifs from divergent genomic regions and applies statistical approaches to select high-confidence motifs. The information that this approach provides helps us understand the evolution of viruses. In this study, we compared our motif-based strategy with current alignment-based recombination-detecting methods and applied our methods to the analysis of multipartite single-stranded plant DNA viruses, including bipartite begomoviruses, Banana bunchy top virus (BBTV) (consisting of 6 genome components) and Faba bean necrotic yellows virus (FBNYV) (consisting of 8 genome components). Our analysis revealed that recombination occurred between genome components in some begomoviruses, BBTV and FBNYV. Our data also show that several unusual recombination events have contributed to the evolution of BBTV genome components. We believe that similar approaches can be applied to resolve the evolutionary history of other viruses.

1. Nuclear localization of the dehydrin OpsDHN1 is determined by histidine-rich motif

PubMed Central

Hernández-Sánchez, Itzell E.; Maruri-López, Israel; Ferrando, Alejandro; Carbonell, Juan; Graether, Steffen P.; Jiménez-Bremont, Juan F.

2015-01-01

The cactus OpsDHN1 dehydrin belongs to a large family of disordered and highly hydrophilic proteins known as Late Embryogenesis Abundant (LEA) proteins, which accumulate during the late stages of embryogenesis and in response to abiotic stresses. Herein, we present the in vivo OpsDHN1 subcellular localization by N-terminal GFP translational fusion; our results revealed a cytoplasmic and nuclear localization of the GFP::OpsDHN1 protein in Nicotiana benthamiana epidermal cells. In addition, dimer assembly of OpsDHN1 in planta using a Bimolecular Fluorescence Complementation (BiFC) approach was demonstrated. In order to understand the in vivo role of the histidine-rich motif, the OpsDHN1-ΔHis version was produced and assayed for its subcellular localization and dimer capability by GFP fusion and BiFC assays, respectively. We found that deletion of the OpsDHN1 histidine-rich motif restricted its localization to cytoplasm, but did not affect dimer formation. In addition, the deletion of the S-segment in the OpsDHN1 protein affected its nuclear localization. Our data suggest that the deletion of histidine-rich motif and S-segment show similar effects, preventing OpsDHN1 from getting into the nucleus. Based on these results, the histidine-rich motif is proposed as a targeting element for OpsDHN1 nuclear localization. PMID:26442018

2. From ligands to binding motifs and beyond; the enhanced versatility of nanocrystal surfaces.

PubMed

De Roo, J; De Keukeleere, K; Hens, Z; Van Driessche, I

2016-09-14

Surface chemistry bridges the gap between nanocrystal synthesis and their applications. In this respect, the discovery of complex ligand binding motifs on semiconductor quantum dots and metal oxide nanocrystals opens a gateway to new areas of research. The implications are far-reaching, from catalytic model systems to the performance of solar cells. PMID:27461488

3. Temporal motifs reveal collaboration patterns in online task-oriented networks

Xuan, Qi; Fang, Huiting; Fu, Chenbo; Filkov, Vladimir

2015-05-01

Real networks feature layers of interactions and complexity. In them, different types of nodes can interact with each other via a variety of events. Examples of this complexity are task-oriented social networks (TOSNs), where teams of people share tasks towards creating a quality artifact, such as academic research papers or software development in commercial or open source environments. Accomplishing those tasks involves both work, e.g., writing the papers or code, and communication, to discuss and coordinate. Taking into account the different types of activities and how they alternate over time can result in much more precise understanding of the TOSNs behaviors and outcomes. That calls for modeling techniques that can accommodate both node and link heterogeneity as well as temporal change. In this paper, we report on methodology for finding temporal motifs in TOSNs, limited to a system of two people and an artifact. We apply the methods to publicly available data of TOSNs from 31 Open Source Software projects. We find that these temporal motifs are enriched in the observed data. When applied to software development outcome, temporal motifs reveal a distinct dependency between collaboration and communication in the code writing process. Moreover, we show that models based on temporal motifs can be used to more precisely relate both individual developer centrality and team cohesion to programmer productivity than models based on aggregated TOSNs.

4. Structural basis for the indispensable role of a unique zinc finger motif in LNX2 ubiquitination

PubMed Central

Nayak, Digant; Sivaraman, J.

2015-01-01

LNX (Ligand of Numb Protein-X) proteins, LNX1 and LNX2, are RING- and PDZ-based E3-ubiquitin ligases known to interact with Numb. Silencing of LNX2 has been reported to down-regulate WNT and NOTCH, two key signaling pathways in tumorigenesis. Here we report the identification of the domain boundary of LNX2 to confer its ubiquitination activity, its crystal structure along with functional studies. We show that the RING domain in LNX2 is flanked by two Zinc-binding motifs (Zn-RING-Zn), in which the N-terminal Zinc-binding motif adopts novel conformation. Although this motif follows the typical Cys2His2-type zinc finger configuration, it is devoid of any secondary structure and forms an open circle conformation, which has not been reported yet. This unique N-terminal Zn-finger motif is indispensable for the activity and stability of LNX2, as verified using mutational studies. The Zn-RING-Zn domain of LNX2 is a dimer and assumes a rigid elongated structure that undergoes autoubiquitination and undergoes N-terminal polyubiquitination. The ubiquitin chains consist of all seven possible isopeptide linkages. These results were validated using full-length LNX2. Moreover we have demonstrated the ubiquitination of cell fate determinant protein, Numb by LNX2. Our study provides a structural basis for the functional machinery of LNX2 and thus provides the opportunity to investigate suitable drug targets against LNX2. PMID:26451611

5. The extended AT-hook is a novel RNA binding motif.

PubMed

Filarsky, Michael; Zillner, Karina; Araya, Ingrid; Villar-Garea, Ana; Merkl, Rainer; Längst, Gernot; Németh, Attila

2015-01-01

The AT-hook has been defined as a DNA binding peptide motif that contains a glycine-arginine-proline (G-R-P) tripeptide core flanked by basic amino acids. Recent reports documented variations in the sequence of AT-hooks and revealed RNA binding activity of some canonical AT-hooks, suggesting a higher structural and functional variability of this protein domain than previously anticipated. Here we describe the discovery and characterization of the extended AT-hook peptide motif (eAT-hook), in which basic amino acids appear symmetrical mainly at a distance of 12-15 amino acids from the G-R-P core. We identified 80 human and 60 mouse eAT-hook proteins and biochemically characterized the eAT-hooks of Tip5/BAZ2A, PTOV1 and GPBP1. Microscale thermophoresis and electrophoretic mobility shift assays reveal the nucleic acid binding features of this peptide motif, and show that eAT-hooks bind RNA with one order of magnitude higher affinity than DNA. In addition, cellular localization studies suggest a role for the N-terminal eAT-hook of PTOV1 in nucleocytoplasmic shuttling. In summary, our findings classify the eAT-hook as a novel nucleic acid binding motif, which potentially mediates various RNA-dependent cellular processes.

6. Application of Motif-Based Tools on Evolutionary Analysis of Multipartite Single-Stranded DNA Viruses

PubMed Central

Wang, Hsiang-Iu; Chang, Chih-Hung; Lin, Po-Heng; Fu, Hui-Chuan; Tang, ChuanYi; Yeh, Hsin-Hung

2013-01-01

Multipartite viruses contain more than one distinctive genome component, and the origin of multipartite viruses has been suggested to evolve from a non-segmented wild-type virus. To explore whether recombination also plays a role in the evolution of the genomes of multipartite viruses, we developed a systematic approach that employs motif-finding tools to detect conserved motifs from divergent genomic regions and applies statistical approaches to select high-confidence motifs. The information that this approach provides helps us understand the evolution of viruses. In this study, we compared our motif-based strategy with current alignment-based recombination-detecting methods and applied our methods to the analysis of multipartite single-stranded plant DNA viruses, including bipartite begomoviruses, Banana bunchy top virus (BBTV) (consisting of 6 genome components) and Faba bean necrotic yellows virus (FBNYV) (consisting of 8 genome components). Our analysis revealed that recombination occurred between genome components in some begomoviruses, BBTV and FBNYV. Our data also show that several unusual recombination events have contributed to the evolution of BBTV genome components. We believe that similar approaches can be applied to resolve the evolutionary history of other viruses. PMID:23936517

7. A Genomic Map of Viroid RNA Motifs Critical for Replication and Systemic Trafficking[W

PubMed Central

Zhong, Xuehua; Archual, Anthony J.; Amin, Amy A.; Ding, Biao

2008-01-01

RNA replication and systemic trafficking play significant roles in developmental regulation and host–pathogen interactions. Viroids are the simplest noncoding eukaryotic RNA pathogens and genetic units that are capable of autonomous replication and systemic trafficking and offer excellent models to investigate the role of RNA structures in these processes. Like other RNAs, the predicted secondary structure of a viroid RNA contains many loops and bulges flanked by double-stranded helices, the biological functions of which are mostly unknown. Using Potato spindle tuber viroid infection of Nicotiana benthamiana as the experimental system, we tested the hypothesis that these loops/bulges are functional motifs that regulate replication in single cells or trafficking in a plant. Through a genome-wide mutational analysis, we identified multiple loops/bulges essential or important for each of these biological processes. Our results led to a genomic map of viroid RNA motifs that mediate single-cell replication and systemic trafficking, respectively. This map provides a framework to enable high-throughput studies on the tertiary structures and functional mechanisms of RNA motifs that regulate viroid replication and trafficking. Our model and approach should also be valuable for comprehensive investigations of the replication and trafficking motifs in other RNAs. PMID:18178767

8. Rate Motifs Tune Auxin/Indole-3-Acetic Acid Degradation Dynamics.

PubMed

Moss, Britney L; Mao, Haibin; Guseman, Jessica M; Hinds, Thomas R; Hellmuth, Antje; Kovenock, Marlies; Noorassa, Anisa; Lanctot, Amy; Villalobos, Luz Irina A Calderón; Zheng, Ning; Nemhauser, Jennifer L

2015-09-01

Ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation is a common feature in diverse plant cell signaling pathways; however, the factors that control the dynamics of regulated protein turnover are largely unknown. One of the best-characterized families of E3 ubiquitin ligases facilitates ubiquitination of auxin (aux)/indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) repressor proteins in the presence of auxin. Rates of auxin-induced degradation vary widely within the Aux/IAA family, and sequences outside of the characterized degron (the minimum region required for auxin-induced degradation) can accelerate or decelerate degradation. We have used synthetic auxin degradation assays in yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) and in plants to characterize motifs flanking the degron that contribute to tuning the dynamics of Aux/IAA degradation. The presence of these rate motifs is conserved in phylogenetically distant members of the Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) Aux/IAA family, as well as in their putative Brassica rapa orthologs. We found that rate motifs can act by enhancing interaction between repressors and the E3, but that this is not the only mechanism of action. Phenotypes of transgenic plants expressing a deletion in a rate motif in IAA28 resembled plants expressing degron mutations, underscoring the functional relevance of Aux/IAA degradation dynamics in regulating auxin responses. PMID:26149575

9. Effect of Thermally Softened Bronze Matrix on the Fracturing Behavior of Diamond Particles in Hybrid Sprayed Bronze/Diamond Composite

Na, Hyuntaek; Bae, Gyuyeol; Kang, Kicheol; Kim, Hyungjun; Kim, Jay-Jung; Lee, Changhee

2010-09-01

In our previous study (Na et al., Compos Sci Technol 69:463-468, 2009), optimized thickness of protective nickel film was proposed for smaller diamond feedstock to obtain reduced impact stress and uniform flight behavior of particles during kinetic (or cold) spraying. However, in this study, nickel-coated diamond particles were severely fractured with increasing particle size due to high kinetic energy. Hence, an innovative hybrid spraying technique (a combination of kinetic and thermal spraying) was introduced to embed relatively large diamond particles into the bronze matrix. Size distributions of the diamond particles in the composite coatings were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy, an electron probe micro analyzer, and image analysis methods. In addition, impact behaviors of diamond particles in kinetic and hybrid gas flows were simulated through finite element analysis (ABAQUS/Explicit 6.7-2). Diamond fracturing was significantly minimized by the reduced impact energy afforded by the thermally softened bronze matrix through hybrid spraying.

10. SA-Mot: a web server for the identification of motifs of interest extracted from protein loops.

PubMed

2011-07-01

The detection of functional motifs is an important step for the determination of protein functions. We present here a new web server SA-Mot (Structural Alphabet Motif) for the extraction and location of structural motifs of interest from protein loops. Contrary to other methods, SA-Mot does not focus only on functional motifs, but it extracts recurrent and conserved structural motifs involved in structural redundancy of loops. SA-Mot uses the structural word notion to extract all structural motifs from uni-dimensional sequences corresponding to loop structures. Then, SA-Mot provides a description of these structural motifs using statistics computed in the loop data set and in SCOP superfamily, sequence and structural parameters. SA-Mot results correspond to an interactive table listing all structural motifs extracted from a target structure and their associated descriptors. Using this information, the users can easily locate loop regions that are important for the protein folding and function. The SA-Mot web server is available at http://sa-mot.mti.univ-paris-diderot.fr.

11. SiO2 nanoparticles modified CPE as a biosensor for determination of i-motif DNA/Tamoxifen interaction.

PubMed

Heydari, Elham; Raoof, Jahan Bakhsh; Ojani, Reza; Bagheryan, Zahra

2016-08-01

Cytosine-rich DNA sequences can form a highly ordered structure known as i-motif in slightly acidic solutions. The stability of the folded i-motif structure is a good strategy to inhibit the telomerase reaction in cancer cells. The electrochemical biosensor was prepared by modifying carbon paste electrode with SiO2 nanoparticles to investigate drugs which can stabilize this structure. Tamoxifen (Tam), an antiestrogen hormonal agent for treatment of breast cancer, was chosen as the model ligand and its interaction with i-motif structure was examined. The interaction between i-motif DNA and Tam was studied in PBS buffer and [Fe(CN)6](3-) through the cyclic voltammetry and square wave voltammetry methods. The oxidation peak of Tam, due to the i-motif DNA/Tam interaction, was observed after i-motif immobilized on the surface of the electrode. The i-motif formation was investigated by circular dichroism spectroscopy and the results showed that this structure can certainly be made with pH around 4.5, but its stability reduced by going to the more alkaline pH. The selectivity which was studied in the presence of complementary strand demonstrated that i-motif structure could be stabilized in acidic pH even in the presence of its complementary strand. PMID:27151665

12. Efficacy of function specific 3D-motifs in enzyme classification according to their EC-numbers.

PubMed

2013-11-01

Due to the increasing number of protein structures with unknown function originated from structural genomics projects, protein function prediction has become an important subject in bioinformatics. Among diverse function prediction methods, exploring known 3D-motifs, which are associated with functional elements in unknown protein structures is one of the most biologically meaningful methods. Homologous enzymes inherit such motifs in their active sites from common ancestors. However, slight differences in the properties of these motifs, results in variation in the reactions and substrates of the enzymes. In this study, we examined the possibility of discriminating highly related active site patterns according to their EC-numbers by 3D-motifs. For each EC-number, the spatial arrangement of an active site, which has minimum average distance to other active sites with the same function, was selected as a representative 3D-motif. In order to characterize the motifs, various points in active site elements were tested. The results demonstrated the possibility of predicting full EC-number of enzymes by 3D-motifs. However, the discriminating power of 3D-motifs varies among different enzyme families and depends on selecting the appropriate points and features.

13. An efficient identification strategy of clonal tea cultivars using long-core motif SSR markers.

PubMed

Wang, Rang Jian; Gao, Xiang Feng; Kong, Xiang Rui; Yang, Jun

2016-01-01

Microsatellites, or simple sequence repeats (SSRs), especially those with long-core motifs (tri-, tetra-, penta-, and hexa-nucleotide) represent an excellent tool for DNA fingerprinting. SSRs with long-core motifs are preferred since neighbor alleles are more easily separated and identified from each other, which render the interpretation of electropherograms and the true alleles more reliable. In the present work, with the purpose of characterizing a set of core SSR markers with long-core motifs for well fingerprinting clonal cultivars of tea (Camellia sinensis), we analyzed 66 elite clonal tea cultivars in China with 33 initially-chosen long-core motif SSR markers covering all the 15 linkage groups of tea plant genome. A set of 6 SSR markers were conclusively selected as core SSR markers after further selection. The polymorphic information content (PIC) of the core SSR markers was >0.5, with ≤5 alleles in each marker containing 10 or fewer genotypes. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that the core SSR markers were not strongly correlated with the trait 'cultivar processing-property'. The combined probability of identity (PID) between two random cultivars for the whole set of 6 SSR markers was estimated to be 2.22 × 10(-5), which was quite low, confirmed the usefulness of the proposed SSR markers for fingerprinting analyses in Camellia sinensis. Moreover, for the sake of quickly discriminating the clonal tea cultivars, a cultivar identification diagram (CID) was subsequently established using these core markers, which fully reflected the identification process and provided the immediate information about which SSR markers were needed to identify a cultivar chosen among the tested ones. The results suggested that long-core motif SSR markers used in the investigation contributed to the accurate and efficient identification of the clonal tea cultivars and enabled the protection of intellectual property.

14. Conserved motif of CDK5RAP2 mediates its localization to centrosomes and the Golgi complex.

PubMed

Wang, Zhe; Wu, Tao; Shi, Lin; Zhang, Lin; Zheng, Wei; Qu, Jianan Y; Niu, Ruifang; Qi, Robert Z

2010-07-16

As the primary microtubule-organizing centers, centrosomes require gamma-tubulin for microtubule nucleation and organization. Located in close vicinity to centrosomes, the Golgi complex is another microtubule-organizing organelle in interphase cells. CDK5RAP2 is a gamma-tubulin complex-binding protein and functions in gamma-tubulin attachment to centrosomes. In this study, we find that CDK5RAP2 localizes to the Golgi complex in an ATP- and centrosome-dependent manner and associates with Golgi membranes independently of microtubules. CDK5RAP2 contains a centrosome-targeting domain with its core region highly homologous to the Motif 2 (CM2) of centrosomin, a functionally related protein in Drosophila. This sequence, referred to as the CM2-like motif, is also conserved in related proteins in chicken and zebrafish. Therefore, CDK5RAP2 may undertake a conserved mechanism for centrosomal localization. Using a mutational approach, we demonstrate that the CM2-like motif plays a crucial role in the centrosomal and Golgi localization of CDK5RAP2. Furthermore, the CM2-like motif is essential for the association of the centrosome-targeting domain to pericentrin and AKAP450. The binding with pericentrin is required for the centrosomal and Golgi localization of CDK5RAP2, whereas the binding with AKAP450 is required for the Golgi localization. Although the CM2-like motif possesses the activity of Ca(2+)-independent calmodulin binding, binding of calmodulin to this sequence is dispensable for centrosomal and Golgi association. Altogether, CDK5RAP2 may represent a novel mechanism for centrosomal and Golgi localization. PMID:20466722

15. GRISOTTO: A greedy approach to improve combinatorial algorithms for motif discovery with prior knowledge

PubMed Central

2011-01-01

Background Position-specific priors (PSP) have been used with success to boost EM and Gibbs sampler-based motif discovery algorithms. PSP information has been computed from different sources, including orthologous conservation, DNA duplex stability, and nucleosome positioning. The use of prior information has not yet been used in the context of combinatorial algorithms. Moreover, priors have been used only independently, and the gain of combining priors from different sources has not yet been studied. Results We extend RISOTTO, a combinatorial algorithm for motif discovery, by post-processing its output with a greedy procedure that uses prior information. PSP's from different sources are combined into a scoring criterion that guides the greedy search procedure. The resulting method, called GRISOTTO, was evaluated over 156 yeast TF ChIP-chip sequence-sets commonly used to benchmark prior-based motif discovery algorithms. Results show that GRISOTTO is at least as accurate as other twelve state-of-the-art approaches for the same task, even without combining priors. Furthermore, by considering combined priors, GRISOTTO is considerably more accurate than the state-of-the-art approaches for the same task. We also show that PSP's improve GRISOTTO ability to retrieve motifs from mouse ChiP-seq data, indicating that the proposed algorithm can be applied to data from a different technology and for a higher eukaryote. Conclusions The conclusions of this work are twofold. First, post-processing the output of combinatorial algorithms by incorporating prior information leads to a very efficient and effective motif discovery method. Second, combining priors from different sources is even more beneficial than considering them separately. PMID:21513505

16. An efficient identification strategy of clonal tea cultivars using long-core motif SSR markers.

PubMed

Wang, Rang Jian; Gao, Xiang Feng; Kong, Xiang Rui; Yang, Jun

2016-01-01

Microsatellites, or simple sequence repeats (SSRs), especially those with long-core motifs (tri-, tetra-, penta-, and hexa-nucleotide) represent an excellent tool for DNA fingerprinting. SSRs with long-core motifs are preferred since neighbor alleles are more easily separated and identified from each other, which render the interpretation of electropherograms and the true alleles more reliable. In the present work, with the purpose of characterizing a set of core SSR markers with long-core motifs for well fingerprinting clonal cultivars of tea (Camellia sinensis), we analyzed 66 elite clonal tea cultivars in China with 33 initially-chosen long-core motif SSR markers covering all the 15 linkage groups of tea plant genome. A set of 6 SSR markers were conclusively selected as core SSR markers after further selection. The polymorphic information content (PIC) of the core SSR markers was >0.5, with ≤5 alleles in each marker containing 10 or fewer genotypes. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that the core SSR markers were not strongly correlated with the trait 'cultivar processing-property'. The combined probability of identity (PID) between two random cultivars for the whole set of 6 SSR markers was estimated to be 2.22 × 10(-5), which was quite low, confirmed the usefulness of the proposed SSR markers for fingerprinting analyses in Camellia sinensis. Moreover, for the sake of quickly discriminating the clonal tea cultivars, a cultivar identification diagram (CID) was subsequently established using these core markers, which fully reflected the identification process and provided the immediate information about which SSR markers were needed to identify a cultivar chosen among the tested ones. The results suggested that long-core motif SSR markers used in the investigation contributed to the accurate and efficient identification of the clonal tea cultivars and enabled the protection of intellectual property. PMID:27504250

17. C lostridium difficile surface proteins are anchored to the cell wall using CWB2 motifs that recognise the anionic polymer PSII

PubMed Central

Willing, Stephanie E.; Candela, Thomas; Shaw, Helen Alexandra; Seager, Zoe; Mesnage, Stéphane; Fagan, Robert P.

2015-01-01

Summary Gram‐positive surface proteins can be covalently or non‐covalently anchored to the cell wall and can impart important properties on the bacterium in respect of cell envelope organisation and interaction with the environment. We describe here a mechanism of protein anchoring involving tandem CWB2 motifs found in a large number of cell wall proteins in the Firmicutes. In the Clostridium difficile cell wall protein family, we show the three tandem repeats of the CWB2 motif are essential for correct anchoring to the cell wall. CWB2 repeats are non‐identical and cannot substitute for each other, as shown by the secretion into the culture supernatant of proteins containing variations in the patterns of repeats. A conserved Ile Leu Leu sequence within the CWB2 repeats is essential for correct anchoring, although a preceding proline residue is dispensable. We propose a likely genetic locus encoding synthesis of the anionic polymer PSII and, using RNA knock‐down of key genes, reveal subtle effects on cell wall composition. We show that the anionic polymer PSII binds two cell wall proteins, SlpA and Cwp2, and these interactions require the CWB2 repeats, defining a new mechanism of protein anchoring in Gram‐positive bacteria. PMID:25649385

18. Composition-dependent stability of the medium-range order responsible for metallic glass formation

DOE PAGESBeta

Zhang, Feng; Ji, Min; Fang, Xiao-Wei; Sun, Yang; Wang, Cai-Zhuang; Mendelev, Mikhail I.; Kramer, M. J.; Napolitano, Ralph E.; Ho, Kai-Ming

2014-09-18

The competition between the characteristic medium-range order corresponding to amorphous alloys and that in ordered crystalline phases is central to phase selection and morphology evolution under various processing conditions. We examine the stability of a model glass system, Cu–Zr, by comparing the energetics of various medium-range structural motifs over a wide range of compositions using first-principles calculations. Furthermore, we focus specifically on motifs that represent possible building blocks for competing glassy and crystalline phases, and we employ a genetic algorithm to efficiently identify the energetically favored decorations of each motif for specific compositions. These results show that a Bergman-type motifmore » with crystallization-resisting icosahedral symmetry is energetically most favorable in the composition range 0.63 < xCu < 0.68, and is the underlying motif for one of the three optimal glass-forming ranges observed experimentally for this binary system (Li et al., 2008). This work establishes an energy-based methodology to evaluate specific medium-range structural motifs which compete with stable crystalline nuclei in deeply undercooled liquids.« less

19. Sequence-motif Detection of NAD(P)-binding Proteins: Discovery of a Unique Antibacterial Drug Target

Hua, Yun Hao; Wu, Chih Yuan; Sargsyan, Karen; Lim, Carmay

2014-09-01

20. Functional Analysis of Semi-conserved Transit Peptide Motifs and Mechanistic Implications in Precursor Targeting and Recognition.

PubMed

Holbrook, Kristen; Subramanian, Chitra; Chotewutmontri, Prakitchai; Reddick, L Evan; Wright, Sarah; Zhang, Huixia; Moncrief, Lily; Bruce, Barry D

2016-09-01

Over 95% of plastid proteins are nuclear-encoded as their precursors containing an N-terminal extension known as the transit peptide (TP). Although highly variable, TPs direct the precursors through a conserved, posttranslational mechanism involving translocons in the outer (TOC) and inner envelope (TOC). The organelle import specificity is mediated by one or more components of the Toc complex. However, the high TP diversity creates a paradox on how the sequences can be specifically recognized. An emerging model of TP design is that they contain multiple loosely conserved motifs that are recognized at different steps in the targeting and transport process. Bioinformatics has demonstrated that many TPs contain semi-conserved physicochemical motifs, termed FGLK. In order to characterize FGLK motifs in TP recognition and import, we have analyzed two well-studied TPs from the precursor of RuBisCO small subunit (SStp) and ferredoxin (Fdtp). Both SStp and Fdtp contain two FGLK motifs. Analysis of large set mutations (∼85) in these two motifs using in vitro, in organello, and in vivo approaches support a model in which the FGLK domains mediate interaction with TOC34 and possibly other TOC components. In vivo import analysis suggests that multiple FGLK motifs are functionally redundant. Furthermore, we discuss how FGLK motifs are required for efficient precursor protein import and how these elements may permit a convergent function of this highly variable class of targeting sequences. PMID:27378725

1. A Conserved GPG-Motif in the HIV-1 Nef Core Is Required for Principal Nef-Activities.

PubMed

Martínez-Bonet, Marta; Palladino, Claudia; Briz, Veronica; Rudolph, Jochen M; Fackler, Oliver T; Relloso, Miguel; Muñoz-Fernandez, Maria Angeles; Madrid, Ricardo

2015-01-01

To find out new determinants required for Nef activity we performed a functional alanine scanning analysis along a discrete but highly conserved region at the core of HIV-1 Nef. We identified the GPG-motif, located at the 121-137 region of HIV-1 NL4.3 Nef, as a novel protein signature strictly required for the p56Lck dependent Nef-induced CD4-downregulation in T-cells. Since the Nef-GPG motif was dispensable for CD4-downregulation in HeLa-CD4 cells, Nef/AP-1 interaction and Nef-dependent effects on Tf-R trafficking, the observed effects on CD4 downregulation cannot be attributed to structure constraints or to alterations on general protein trafficking. Besides, we found that the GPG-motif was also required for Nef-dependent inhibition of ring actin re-organization upon TCR triggering and MHCI downregulation, suggesting that the GPG-motif could actively cooperate with the Nef PxxP motif for these HIV-1 Nef-related effects. Finally, we observed that the Nef-GPG motif was required for optimal infectivity of those viruses produced in T-cells. According to these findings, we propose the conserved GPG-motif in HIV-1 Nef as functional region required for HIV-1 infectivity and therefore with a potential interest for the interference of Nef activity during HIV-1 infection. PMID:26700863

2. A Conserved GPG-Motif in the HIV-1 Nef Core Is Required for Principal Nef-Activities

PubMed Central

Martínez-Bonet, Marta; Palladino, Claudia; Briz, Veronica; Rudolph, Jochen M.; Fackler, Oliver T.; Relloso, Miguel; Muñoz-Fernandez, Maria Angeles; Madrid, Ricardo

2015-01-01

To find out new determinants required for Nef activity we performed a functional alanine scanning analysis along a discrete but highly conserved region at the core of HIV-1 Nef. We identified the GPG-motif, located at the 121–137 region of HIV-1 NL4.3 Nef, as a novel protein signature strictly required for the p56Lck dependent Nef-induced CD4-downregulation in T-cells. Since the Nef-GPG motif was dispensable for CD4-downregulation in HeLa-CD4 cells, Nef/AP-1 interaction and Nef-dependent effects on Tf-R trafficking, the observed effects on CD4 downregulation cannot be attributed to structure constraints or to alterations on general protein trafficking. Besides, we found that the GPG-motif was also required for Nef-dependent inhibition of ring actin re-organization upon TCR triggering and MHCI downregulation, suggesting that the GPG-motif could actively cooperate with the Nef PxxP motif for these HIV-1 Nef-related effects. Finally, we observed that the Nef-GPG motif was required for optimal infectivity of those viruses produced in T-cells. According to these findings, we propose the conserved GPG-motif in HIV-1 Nef as functional region required for HIV-1 infectivity and therefore with a potential interest for the interference of Nef activity during HIV-1 infection. PMID:26700863

3. A comprehensive classification and nomenclature of carboxyl–carboxyl(ate) supramolecular motifs and related catemers: implications for biomolecular systems

PubMed Central

D’Ascenzo, Luigi; Auffinger, Pascal

2015-01-01

Carboxyl and carboxylate groups form important supramolecular motifs (synthons). Besides carboxyl cyclic dimers, carboxyl and carboxylate groups can associate through a single hydrogen bond. Carboxylic groups can further form polymeric-like catemer chains within crystals. To date, no exhaustive classification of these motifs has been established. In this work, 17 association types were identified (13 carboxyl–carboxyl and 4 carboxyl–carboxylate motifs) by taking into account the syn and anti carboxyl conformers, as well as the syn and anti lone pairs of the O atoms. From these data, a simple rule was derived stating that only eight distinct catemer motifs involving repetitive combinations of syn and anti carboxyl groups can be formed. Examples extracted from the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD) for all identified dimers and catemers are presented, as well as statistical data related to their occurrence and conformational preferences. The inter-carboxyl(ate) and carboxyl(ate)–water hydrogen-bond properties are described, stressing the occurrence of very short (strong) hydrogen bonds. The precise characterization and classification of these supramolecular motifs should be of interest in crystal engineering, pharmaceutical and also biomolecular sciences, where similar motifs occur in the form of pairs of Asp/Glu amino acids or motifs involving ligands bearing carboxyl(ate) groups. Hence, we present data emphasizing how the analysis of hydrogen-containing small molecules of high resolution can help understand structural aspects of larger and more complex biomolecular systems of lower resolution. PMID:25827369

4. Multiple Binding Modes between HNF4[alpha] and the LXXLL Motifs of PGC-1[alpha] Lead to Full Activation

SciTech Connect

Rha, Geun Bae; Wu, Guangteng; Shoelson, Steven E.; Chi, Young-In

2010-04-15

Hepatocyte nuclear factor 4{alpha} (HNF4{alpha}) is a novel nuclear receptor that participates in a hierarchical network of transcription factors regulating the development and physiology of such vital organs as the liver, pancreas, and kidney. Among the various transcriptional coregulators with which HNF4{alpha} interacts, peroxisome proliferation-activated receptor {gamma} (PPAR{gamma}) coactivator 1{alpha} (PGC-1{alpha}) represents a novel coactivator whose activation is unusually robust and whose binding mode appears to be distinct from that of canonical coactivators such as NCoA/SRC/p160 family members. To elucidate the potentially unique molecular mechanism of PGC-1{alpha} recruitment, we have determined the crystal structure of HNF4{alpha} in complex with a fragment of PGC-1{alpha} containing all three of its LXXLL motifs. Despite the presence of all three LXXLL motifs available for interactions, only one is bound at the canonical binding site, with no additional contacts observed between the two proteins. However, a close inspection of the electron density map indicates that the bound LXXLL motif is not a selected one but an averaged structure of more than one LXXLL motif. Further biochemical and functional studies show that the individual LXXLL motifs can bind but drive only minimal transactivation. Only when more than one LXXLL motif is involved can significant transcriptional activity be measured, and full activation requires all three LXXLL motifs. These findings led us to propose a model wherein each LXXLL motif has an additive effect, and the multiple binding modes by HNF4{alpha} toward the LXXLL motifs of PGC-1{alpha} could account for the apparent robust activation by providing a flexible mechanism for combinatorial recruitment of additional coactivators and mediators.

5. Stabilizing Motifs in Autonomous Boolean Networks and the Yeast Cell Cycle Oscillator

Sevim, Volkan; Gong, Xinwei; Socolar, Joshua

2009-03-01

Synchronously updated Boolean networks are widely used to model gene regulation. Some properties of these model networks are known to be artifacts of the clocking in the update scheme. Autonomous updating is a less artificial scheme that allows one to introduce small timing perturbations and study stability of the attractors. We argue that the stabilization of a limit cycle in an autonomous Boolean network requires a combination of motifs such as feed-forward loops and auto-repressive links that can correct small fluctuations in the timing of switching events. A recently published model of the transcriptional cell-cycle oscillator in yeast contains the motifs necessary for stability under autonomous updating [1]. [1] D. A. Orlando, et al. Nature (London), 4530 (7197):0 944--947, 2008.

6. The small Tim proteins and the twin Cx3C motif.

PubMed

Koehler, Carla M

2004-01-01

The mitochondrial intermembrane space contains the 'small' Tim (translocase of inner membrane) proteins that are marked by their conserved 'twin Cx(3)C' motif separated by 11-16 residues. Together with the Tim22 complex at the inner membrane, the small Tim proteins form the TIM22 import machinery that mediates the biogenesis of polytopic inner membrane proteins. Upon first investigation, the conserved motif resembles a zinc-finger-like domain, but the spacing between the cysteine residues differs from that a canonical zinc finger. Recent publications present different views about the function of the conserved cysteines: the cysteines form a zinc-finger-like structure to coordinate zinc or, alternatively, they form juxtapositioned disulfide bonds.

7. Fast motif-network scheme for extensive exploration of complex crystal structures in silicate cathodes

Ho, Kai-Ming; Zhao, Xin; Wu, Shunqing; Lv, Xiaobao; Nguyen, Manh Cuong; Wang, Cai-Zhuang; Lin, Zijing; Zhu, Zi-Zhong

2015-03-01

A motif-network search scheme is proposed to study the crystal structures of the dilithium/disodium transition metal orthosilicates A2MSiO4. Using this fast and efficient method, the structures of all six combinations with A = Li or Na and M = Mn, Fe or Co were extensively explored in this work. In addition to finding all previously reported experimental structures, we discover many other different crystal structures which are highly degenerate in energy. These tetrahedral-network-based structures can be classified into 1D, 2D and 3D types. A clear trend of the structural preference in different systems is revealed and possible indicators that affect the structure stabilities are introduced. For the case of Na systems which have been much less investigated in the literature relative to the Li systems, we predicted their ground state structures and found evidence for the existence of new structural motifs.

8. Exploration of tetrahedral structures in silicate cathodes using a motif-network scheme

Zhao, Xin; Wu, Shunqing; Lv, Xiaobao; Nguyen, Manh Cuong; Wang, Cai-Zhuang; Lin, Zijing; Zhu, Zi-Zhong; Ho, Kai-Ming

2015-10-01

Using a motif-network search scheme, we studied the tetrahedral structures of the dilithium/disodium transition metal orthosilicates A2MSiO4 with A = Li or Na and M = Mn, Fe or Co. In addition to finding all previously reported structures, we discovered many other different tetrahedral-network-based crystal structures which are highly degenerate in energy. These structures can be classified into structures with 1D, 2D and 3D M-Si-O frameworks. A clear trend of the structural preference in different systems was revealed and possible indicators that affect the structure stabilities were introduced. For the case of Na systems which have been much less investigated in the literature relative to the Li systems, we predicted their ground state structures and found evidence for the existence of new structural motifs.

9. Investigating the mechanism of the assembly of FGF1-binding heparan sulfate motifs

PubMed Central

Nguyen, Thao Kim Nu; Raman, Karthik; Trana, Vy My; Kuberan, Balagurunathan

2011-01-01

Heparan sulfate (HS) chains play crucial biological roles by binding to various signaling molecules including fibroblast growth factors (FGFs). Distinct sulfation patterns of HS chains are required for their binding to FGFs/FGF receptors (FGFRs). These sulfation patterns are putatively regulated by biosynthetic enzyme complexes, called GAGOSOMES, in the Golgi. While the structural requirements of HS-FGF interactions have been described previously, it is still unclear how the FGF-binding motif is assembled in vivo. In this study, we generated HS structures using biosynthetic enzymes in a sequential or concurrent manner to elucidate the potential mechanism by which the FGF1-binding HS motif is assembled. Our results indicate that the HS chains form ternary complexes with FGF1/FGFR when enzymes carry out modifications in a specific manner. PMID:21803043

10. The nitrogen responsive transcriptome in potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) reveals significant gene regulatory motifs.

PubMed

Gálvez, José Héctor; Tai, Helen H; Lagüe, Martin; Zebarth, Bernie J; Strömvik, Martina V

2016-01-01

Nitrogen (N) is the most important nutrient for the growth of potato (Solanum tuberosum L.). Foliar gene expression in potato plants with and without N supplementation at 180 kg N ha(-1) was compared at mid-season. Genes with consistent differences in foliar expression due to N supplementation over three cultivars and two developmental time points were examined. In total, thirty genes were found to be over-expressed and nine genes were found to be under-expressed with supplemented N. Functional relationships between over-expressed genes were found. The main metabolic pathway represented among differentially expressed genes was amino acid metabolism. The 1000 bp upstream flanking regions of the differentially expressed genes were analysed and nine overrepresented motifs were found using three motif discovery algorithms (Seeder, Weeder and MEME). These results point to coordinated gene regulation at the transcriptional level controlling steady state potato responses to N sufficiency. PMID:27193058

11. Crystal structure and functional characterization of a light-driven chloride pump having an NTQ motif.

PubMed

Kim, Kuglae; Kwon, Soon-Kyeong; Jun, Sung-Hoon; Cha, Jeong Seok; Kim, Hoyoung; Lee, Weontae; Kim, Jihyun F; Cho, Hyun-Soo

2016-01-01

A novel light-driven chloride-pumping rhodopsin (ClR) containing an 'NTQ motif' in its putative ion conduction pathway has been discovered and functionally characterized in a genomic analysis study of a marine bacterium. Here we report the crystal structure of ClR from the flavobacterium Nonlabens marinus S1-08(T) determined under two conditions at 2.0 and 1.56 Å resolutions. The structures reveal two chloride-binding sites, one around the protonated Schiff base and the other on a cytoplasmic loop. We identify a '3 omega motif' formed by three non-consecutive aromatic amino acids that is correlated with the B-C loop orientation. Detailed ClR structural analyses with functional studies in E. coli reveal the chloride ion transduction pathway. Our results help understand the molecular mechanism and physiological role of ClR and provide a structural basis for optogenetic applications. PMID:27554809

12. Super-transient scaling in time-delay autonomous Boolean network motifs

D'Huys, Otti; Lohmann, Johannes; Haynes, Nicholas D.; Gauthier, Daniel J.

2016-09-01

Autonomous Boolean networks are commonly used to model the dynamics of gene regulatory networks and allow for the prediction of stable dynamical attractors. However, most models do not account for time delays along the network links and noise, which are crucial features of real biological systems. Concentrating on two paradigmatic motifs, the toggle switch and the repressilator, we develop an experimental testbed that explicitly includes both inter-node time delays and noise using digital logic elements on field-programmable gate arrays. We observe transients that last millions to billions of characteristic time scales and scale exponentially with the amount of time delays between nodes, a phenomenon known as super-transient scaling. We develop a hybrid model that includes time delays along network links and allows for stochastic variation in the delays. Using this model, we explain the observed super-transient scaling of both motifs and recreate the experimentally measured transient distributions.

13. Pyrene functionalized molecular beacon with pH-sensitive i-motif in a loop.

PubMed

Dembska, Anna; Juskowiak, Bernard

2015-01-01

In this work, we present a spectral characterization of pH-sensitive system, which combines the i-motif properties with the spatially sensitive fluorescence signal of pyrene molecules attached to hairpin ends. The excimer production (fluorescence max. ∼480 nm) by pyrene labels at the ends of the molecular beacon is driven by pH-dependent i-motif formation in the loop. To illustrate the performance and reversible work of our systems, we performed the experiments with repeatedly pH cycling between pH values of 7.5±0.3 and 6.5±0.3. The sensor gives analytical response in excimer-monomer switching mode in narrow pH range (1.5 pH units) and exhibits high pH resolution (0.1 pH unit).

14. Spectral Barcoding of Quantum Dots: Deciphering Structural Motifs from the Excitonic Spectra

SciTech Connect

Mlinar, V.; Zunger, A.

2009-01-01

Self-assembled semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) show in high-resolution single-dot spectra a multitude of sharp lines, resembling a barcode, due to various neutral and charged exciton complexes. Here we propose the 'spectral barcoding' method that deciphers structural motifs of dots by using such barcode as input to an artificial-intelligence learning system. Thus, we invert the common practice of deducing spectra from structure by deducing structure from spectra. This approach (i) lays the foundation for building a much needed structure-spectra understanding for large nanostructures and (ii) can guide future design of desired optical features of QDs by controlling during growth only those structural motifs that decide given optical features.

15. A Convex Atomic-Norm Approach to Multiple Sequence Alignment and Motif Discovery

PubMed Central

Yen, Ian E. H.; Lin, Xin; Zhang, Jiong; Ravikumar, Pradeep; Dhillon, Inderjit S.

2016-01-01

Multiple Sequence Alignment and Motif Discovery, known as NP-hard problems, are two fundamental tasks in Bioinformatics. Existing approaches to these two problems are based on either local search methods such as Expectation Maximization (EM), Gibbs Sampling or greedy heuristic methods. In this work, we develop a convex relaxation approach to both problems based on the recent concept of atomic norm and develop a new algorithm, termed Greedy Direction Method of Multiplier, for solving the convex relaxation with two convex atomic constraints. Experiments show that our convex relaxation approach produces solutions of higher quality than those standard tools widely-used in Bioinformatics community on the Multiple Sequence Alignment and Motif Discovery problems. PMID:27559428

16. The nitrogen responsive transcriptome in potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) reveals significant gene regulatory motifs.

PubMed

Gálvez, José Héctor; Tai, Helen H; Lagüe, Martin; Zebarth, Bernie J; Strömvik, Martina V

2016-05-19

Nitrogen (N) is the most important nutrient for the growth of potato (Solanum tuberosum L.). Foliar gene expression in potato plants with and without N supplementation at 180 kg N ha(-1) was compared at mid-season. Genes with consistent differences in foliar expression due to N supplementation over three cultivars and two developmental time points were examined. In total, thirty genes were found to be over-expressed and nine genes were found to be under-expressed with supplemented N. Functional relationships between over-expressed genes were found. The main metabolic pathway represented among differentially expressed genes was amino acid metabolism. The 1000 bp upstream flanking regions of the differentially expressed genes were analysed and nine overrepresented motifs were found using three motif discovery algorithms (Seeder, Weeder and MEME). These results point to coordinated gene regulation at the transcriptional level controlling steady state potato responses to N sufficiency.

17. Native characterization of nucleic acid motif thermodynamics via non-covalent catalysis

PubMed Central

Wang, Chunyan; Bae, Jin H.; Zhang, David Yu

2016-01-01

DNA hybridization thermodynamics is critical for accurate design of oligonucleotides for biotechnology and nanotechnology applications, but parameters currently in use are inaccurately extrapolated based on limited quantitative understanding of thermal behaviours. Here, we present a method to measure the ΔG° of DNA motifs at temperatures and buffer conditions of interest, with significantly better accuracy (6- to 14-fold lower s.e.) than prior methods. The equilibrium constant of a reaction with thermodynamics closely approximating that of a desired motif is numerically calculated from directly observed reactant and product equilibrium concentrations; a DNA catalyst is designed to accelerate equilibration. We measured the ΔG° of terminal fluorophores, single-nucleotide dangles and multinucleotide dangles, in temperatures ranging from 10 to 45 °C. PMID:26782977

18. The nitrogen responsive transcriptome in potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) reveals significant gene regulatory motifs

PubMed Central

Gálvez, José Héctor; Tai, Helen H.; Lagüe, Martin; Zebarth, Bernie J.; Strömvik, Martina V.

2016-01-01

Nitrogen (N) is the most important nutrient for the growth of potato (Solanum tuberosum L.). Foliar gene expression in potato plants with and without N supplementation at 180 kg N ha−1 was compared at mid-season. Genes with consistent differences in foliar expression due to N supplementation over three cultivars and two developmental time points were examined. In total, thirty genes were found to be over-expressed and nine genes were found to be under-expressed with supplemented N. Functional relationships between over-expressed genes were found. The main metabolic pathway represented among differentially expressed genes was amino acid metabolism. The 1000 bp upstream flanking regions of the differentially expressed genes were analysed and nine overrepresented motifs were found using three motif discovery algorithms (Seeder, Weeder and MEME). These results point to coordinated gene regulation at the transcriptional level controlling steady state potato responses to N sufficiency. PMID:27193058

19. Thymoproteasomes produce unique peptide motifs for positive selection of CD8+ T cells

PubMed Central

Sasaki, Katsuhiro; Takada, Kensuke; Ohte, Yuki; Kondo, Hiroyuki; Sorimachi, Hiroyuki; Tanaka, Keiji; Takahama, Yousuke; Murata, Shigeo

2015-01-01

Positive selection in the thymus provides low-affinity T-cell receptor (TCR) engagement to support the development of potentially useful self-major histocompatibility complex class I (MHC-I)-restricted T cells. Optimal positive selection of CD8+ T cells requires cortical thymic epithelial cells that express β5t-containing thymoproteasomes (tCPs). However, how tCPs govern positive selection is unclear. Here we show that the tCPs produce unique cleavage motifs in digested peptides and in MHC-I-associated peptides. Interestingly, MHC-I-associated peptides carrying these tCP-dependent motifs are enriched with low-affinity TCR ligands that efficiently induce the positive selection of functionally competent CD8+ T cells in antigen-specific TCR-transgenic models. These results suggest that tCPs contribute to the positive selection of CD8+ T cells by preferentially producing low-affinity TCR ligand peptides. PMID:26099460

20. Crystallization and Preliminary X-ray Diffraction Analysis of motif N from Saccharomyces cerevisiae Dbf4

SciTech Connect

Matthews, L.; Duong, A; Prasad, A; Duncker, B; Guarne, A

2009-01-01

The Cdc7-Dbf4 complex plays an instrumental role in the initiation of DNA replication and is a target of replication-checkpoint responses in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Cdc7 is a conserved serine/threonine kinase whose activity depends on association with its regulatory subunit, Dbf4. A conserved sequence near the N-terminus of Dbf4 (motif N) is necessary for the interaction of Cdc7-Dbf4 with the checkpoint kinase Rad53. To understand the role of the Cdc7-Dbf4 complex in checkpoint responses, a fragment of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Dbf4 encompassing motif N was isolated, overproduced and crystallized. A complete native data set was collected at 100 K from crystals that diffracted X-rays to 2.75 {angstrom} resolution and structure determination is currently under way.

1. Discovery of Widespread GTP-Binding Motifs in Genomic DNA and RNA

PubMed Central

Curtis, Edward A.; Liu, David R.

2013-01-01

SUMMARY Biological RNAs that bind small-molecules have been implicated in a variety of regulatory and catalytic processes. Inspired by these examples, we used in vitro selection to search a pool of genomeencoded RNA fragments for naturally occurring GTP aptamers. Several classes of aptamers were identified, including one ("the G motif") with a G-quadruplex structure. Further analysis revealed that most RNA and DNA G-quadruplexes bind GTP. The G motif is abundant in eukaryotes, and the human genome contains ∼75,000 examples with dissociation constants comparable to the GTP concentration of a eukaryotic cell (∼300 µM). G-quadruplexes play roles in diverse cellular processes, and our findings raise the possibility that GTP may play a role in the function of these elements. Consistent with this possibility, the sequence requirements of several classes of regulatory G-quadruplexes parallel those of GTP binding. PMID:23601641

2. Feedback loops and reciprocal regulation: recurring motifs in the systems biology of the cell cycle

PubMed Central

Ferrell, James E.

2013-01-01

The study of eukaryotic cell cycle regulation over the last several decades has led to a remarkably detailed understanding of the complex regulatory system that drives this fundamental process. This allows us to now look for recurring motifs in the regulatory system. Among these are negative feedback loops, which underpin checkpoints and generate cell cycle oscillations; positive feedback loops, which promote oscillations and make cell cycle transitions switch-like and unidirectional; and reciprocal regulation, which can increase the control a key regulator exerts. These simple motifs are found at multiple points in the cell cycle (e.g., S-phase and M-phase control) and are conserved in diverse organisms. These findings argue for an underlying unity in the principles of cell cycle control. PMID:23927869

3. Exploration of tetrahedral structures in silicate cathodes using a motif-network scheme

SciTech Connect

Zhao, Xin; Wu, Shunqing; Lv, Xiaobao; Nguyen, Manh Cuong; Wang, Cai -Zhuang; Lin, Zijing; Zhu, Zi -Zhong; Ho, Kai -Ming

2015-10-26

Using a motif-network search scheme, we studied the tetrahedral structures of the dilithium/disodium transition metal orthosilicates A2MSiO4 with A = Li or Na and M = Mn, Fe or Co. In addition to finding all previously reported structures, we discovered many other different tetrahedral-network-based crystal structures which are highly degenerate in energy. In addition, these structures can be classified into structures with 1D, 2D and 3D M-Si-O frameworks. A clear trend of the structural preference in different systems was revealed and possible indicators that affect the structure stabilities were introduced. For the case of Na systems which have been much less investigated in the literature relative to the Li systems, we predicted their ground state structures and found evidence for the existence of new structural motifs.

4. A Common Structural Motif in the Binding of Virulence Factors to Bacterial Secretion Chaperones

SciTech Connect

Lilic,M.; Vujanac, M.; Stebbins, C.

2006-01-01

Salmonella invasion protein A (SipA) is translocated into host cells by a type III secretion system (T3SS) and comprises two regions: one domain binds its cognate type III secretion chaperone, InvB, in the bacterium to facilitate translocation, while a second domain functions in the host cell, contributing to bacterial uptake by polymerizing actin. We present here the crystal structures of the SipA chaperone binding domain (CBD) alone and in complex with InvB. The SipA CBD is found to consist of a nonglobular polypeptide as well as a large globular domain, both of which are necessary for binding to InvB. We also identify a structural motif that may direct virulence factors to their cognate chaperones in a diverse range of pathogenic bacteria. Disruption of this structural motif leads to a destabilization of several chaperone-substrate complexes from different species, as well as an impairment of secretion in Salmonella.

5. Thymoproteasomes produce unique peptide motifs for positive selection of CD8(+) T cells.

PubMed

Sasaki, Katsuhiro; Takada, Kensuke; Ohte, Yuki; Kondo, Hiroyuki; Sorimachi, Hiroyuki; Tanaka, Keiji; Takahama, Yousuke; Murata, Shigeo

2015-01-01

Positive selection in the thymus provides low-affinity T-cell receptor (TCR) engagement to support the development of potentially useful self-major histocompatibility complex class I (MHC-I)-restricted T cells. Optimal positive selection of CD8(+) T cells requires cortical thymic epithelial cells that express β5t-containing thymoproteasomes (tCPs). However, how tCPs govern positive selection is unclear. Here we show that the tCPs produce unique cleavage motifs in digested peptides and in MHC-I-associated peptides. Interestingly, MHC-I-associated peptides carrying these tCP-dependent motifs are enriched with low-affinity TCR ligands that efficiently induce the positive selection of functionally competent CD8(+) T cells in antigen-specific TCR-transgenic models. These results suggest that tCPs contribute to the positive selection of CD8(+) T cells by preferentially producing low-affinity TCR ligand peptides.

6. Recent advances in heterobimetallic catalysis across a "transition metal-tin" motif.

PubMed

Das, Debjit; Mohapatra, Swapna Sarita; Roy, Sujit

2015-06-01

Heterobimetallic catalysts, bearing a metal-metal bond between a transition metal (TM) and a tin atom, are very promising due to their ability in mediating a wide variety of organic transformations. Indeed the utilization of such catalysts is a challenging and evolving area in the field of homogeneous catalysis. Catalysis across a 'TM-Sn' motif is an emerging area in the broader domain of multimetallic catalysis. The present review apprises the chemists' community of the past, present and future scope of this versatile catalytic motif. The TM-Sn catalyzed reactions presented include, among others, Friedel-Crafts alkylation, carbonylation, polymerization, cyclization, olefin metathesis, Heck coupling, hydroarylation Michael addition and tandem coupling. The mechanistic aspects of the reactions have been highlighted as well. PMID:25898943

7. Quasiracemate Crystal Structures of Magainin 2 Derivatives Support the Functional Significance of the Phenylalanine Zipper Motif

PubMed Central

Hayouka, Zvi; Thomas, Nicole C.; Mortenson, David E.; Satyshur, Kenneth A.; Weisblum, Bernard; Forest, Katrina T.; Gellman, Samuel H.

2016-01-01

Quasiracemic crystallography has been used to explore the significance of homochiral and heterochiral associations in a set of host-defense peptide derivatives. The previously reported racemic crystal structure of a magainin 2 derivative displayed a homochiral dimer association featuring a “phenylalanine zipper” notable for the dual roles of phenylalanines in mediating dimerization and formation of an exposed hydrophobic swath. This motif is seen as well in two new quasiracemate crystals that contain the D form of the magainin 2 derivative along with an L-peptide in which one Ala has been replaced by a β-amino acid residue. This structural trend supports the hypothesis that the Phe zipper motif has functional significance. PMID:26369301

8. Native characterization of nucleic acid motif thermodynamics via non-covalent catalysis

Wang, Chunyan; Bae, Jin H.; Zhang, David Yu

2016-01-01

DNA hybridization thermodynamics is critical for accurate design of oligonucleotides for biotechnology and nanotechnology applications, but parameters currently in use are inaccurately extrapolated based on limited quantitative understanding of thermal behaviours. Here, we present a method to measure the ΔG° of DNA motifs at temperatures and buffer conditions of interest, with significantly better accuracy (6- to 14-fold lower s.e.) than prior methods. The equilibrium constant of a reaction with thermodynamics closely approximating that of a desired motif is numerically calculated from directly observed reactant and product equilibrium concentrations; a DNA catalyst is designed to accelerate equilibration. We measured the ΔG° of terminal fluorophores, single-nucleotide dangles and multinucleotide dangles, in temperatures ranging from 10 to 45 °C.

9. Rapid Identification of Protein Kinase Phosphorylation Site Motifs Using Combinatorial Peptide Libraries.

PubMed

Miller, Chad J; Turk, Benjamin E

2016-01-01

Eukaryotic protein kinases phosphorylate substrates at serine, threonine, and tyrosine residues that fall within the context of short sequence motifs. Knowing the phosphorylation site motif for a protein kinase facilitates designing substrates for kinase assays and mapping phosphorylation sites in protein substrates. Here, we describe an arrayed peptide library protocol for rapidly determining kinase phosphorylation consensus sequences. This method uses a set of peptide mixtures in which each of the 20 amino acid residues is systematically substituted at nine positions surrounding a central site of phosphorylation. Peptide mixtures are arrayed in multiwell plates and analyzed by radiolabel assay with the kinase of interest. The preferred sequence is determined from the relative rate of phosphorylation of each peptide in the array. Consensus peptides based on these sequences typically serve as efficient and specific kinase substrates for high-throughput screening or incorporation into biosensors.

10. Edge usage, motifs, and regulatory logic for cell cycling genetic networks

Zagorski, M.; Krzywicki, A.; Martin, O. C.

2013-01-01

The cell cycle is a tightly controlled process, yet it shows marked differences across species. Which of its structural features follow solely from the ability to control gene expression? We tackle this question in silico by examining the ensemble of all regulatory networks which satisfy the constraint of producing a given sequence of gene expressions. We focus on three cell cycle profiles coming from baker's yeast, fission yeast, and mammals. First, we show that the networks in each of the ensembles use just a few interactions that are repeatedly reused as building blocks. Second, we find an enrichment in network motifs that is similar in the two yeast cell cycle systems investigated. These motifs do not have autonomous functions, yet they reveal a regulatory logic for cell cycling based on a feed-forward cascade of activating interactions.

11. Exploration of tetrahedral structures in silicate cathodes using a motif-network scheme

PubMed Central

Zhao, Xin; Wu, Shunqing; Lv, Xiaobao; Nguyen, Manh Cuong; Wang, Cai-Zhuang; Lin, Zijing; Zhu, Zi-Zhong; Ho, Kai-Ming

2015-01-01

Using a motif-network search scheme, we studied the tetrahedral structures of the dilithium/disodium transition metal orthosilicates A2MSiO4 with A = Li or Na and M = Mn, Fe or Co. In addition to finding all previously reported structures, we discovered many other different tetrahedral-network-based crystal structures which are highly degenerate in energy. These structures can be classified into structures with 1D, 2D and 3D M-Si-O frameworks. A clear trend of the structural preference in different systems was revealed and possible indicators that affect the structure stabilities were introduced. For the case of Na systems which have been much less investigated in the literature relative to the Li systems, we predicted their ground state structures and found evidence for the existence of new structural motifs. PMID:26497381

12. Pioneer Transcription Factors Target Partial DNA Motifs on Nucleosomes to Initiate Reprogramming

PubMed Central

Soufi, Abdenour; Garcia, Meilin Fernandez; Jaroszewicz, Artur; Osman, Nebiyu; Pellegrini, Matteo; Zaret, Kenneth S.

2015-01-01

SUMMARY Pioneer transcription factors (TFs) access silent chromatin and initiate cell fate changes, using diverse types of DNA binding domains (DBDs). FoxA, the paradigm pioneer TF, has a winged helix DBD that resembles linker histone and thereby binds its target sites on nucleosomes and in compacted chromatin. Herein we compare the nucleosome and chromatin targeting activities of Oct4 (POU DBD), Sox2 (HMG box DBD), Klf4 (zinc finger DBD), and c-Myc (bHLH DBD), which together reprogram somatic cells to pluripotency. Purified Oct4, Sox2, and Klf4 proteins can bind nucleosomes in vitro, and in vivo they preferentially target silent sites enriched for nucleosomes. Pioneer activity relates simply to the ability of a given DBD to target partial motifs displayed on the nucleosome surface. Such partial motif recognition can occur by coordinate binding between factors. Our findings provide insight into how pioneer factors can target naïve chromatin sites. PMID:25892221

13. Native characterization of nucleic acid motif thermodynamics via non-covalent catalysis.

PubMed

Wang, Chunyan; Bae, Jin H; Zhang, David Yu

2016-01-01

DNA hybridization thermodynamics is critical for accurate design of oligonucleotides for biotechnology and nanotechnology applications, but parameters currently in use are inaccurately extrapolated based on limited quantitative understanding of thermal behaviours. Here, we present a method to measure the ΔG° of DNA motifs at temperatures and buffer conditions of interest, with significantly better accuracy (6- to 14-fold lower s.e.) than prior methods. The equilibrium constant of a reaction with thermodynamics closely approximating that of a desired motif is numerically calculated from directly observed reactant and product equilibrium concentrations; a DNA catalyst is designed to accelerate equilibration. We measured the ΔG° of terminal fluorophores, single-nucleotide dangles and multinucleotide dangles, in temperatures ranging from 10 to 45 °C.

14. Exploration of tetrahedral structures in silicate cathodes using a motif-network scheme

DOE PAGESBeta

Zhao, Xin; Wu, Shunqing; Lv, Xiaobao; Nguyen, Manh Cuong; Wang, Cai -Zhuang; Lin, Zijing; Zhu, Zi -Zhong; Ho, Kai -Ming

2015-10-26

Using a motif-network search scheme, we studied the tetrahedral structures of the dilithium/disodium transition metal orthosilicates A2MSiO4 with A = Li or Na and M = Mn, Fe or Co. In addition to finding all previously reported structures, we discovered many other different tetrahedral-network-based crystal structures which are highly degenerate in energy. In addition, these structures can be classified into structures with 1D, 2D and 3D M-Si-O frameworks. A clear trend of the structural preference in different systems was revealed and possible indicators that affect the structure stabilities were introduced. For the case of Na systems which have been muchmore » less investigated in the literature relative to the Li systems, we predicted their ground state structures and found evidence for the existence of new structural motifs.« less

15. Systematic discovery of linear binding motifs targeting an ancient protein interaction surface on MAP kinases.

PubMed

Zeke, András; Bastys, Tomas; Alexa, Anita; Garai, Ágnes; Mészáros, Bálint; Kirsch, Klára; Dosztányi, Zsuzsanna; Kalinina, Olga V; Reményi, Attila

2015-11-01

Mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPK) are broadly used regulators of cellular signaling. However, how these enzymes can be involved in such a broad spectrum of physiological functions is not understood. Systematic discovery of MAPK networks both experimentally and in silico has been hindered because MAPKs bind to other proteins with low affinity and mostly in less-characterized disordered regions. We used a structurally consistent model on kinase-docking motif interactions to facilitate the discovery of short functional sites in the structurally flexible and functionally under-explored part of the human proteome and applied experimental tools specifically tailored to detect low-affinity protein-protein interactions for their validation in vitro and in cell-based assays. The combined computational and experimental approach enabled the identification of many novel MAPK-docking motifs that were elusive for other large-scale protein-protein interaction screens. The analysis produced an extensive list of independently evolved linear binding motifs from a functionally diverse set of proteins. These all target, with characteristic binding specificity, an ancient protein interaction surface on evolutionarily related but physiologically clearly distinct three MAPKs (JNK, ERK, and p38). This inventory of human protein kinase binding sites was compared with that of other organisms to examine how kinase-mediated partnerships evolved over time. The analysis suggests that most human MAPK-binding motifs are surprisingly new evolutionarily inventions and newly found links highlight (previously hidden) roles of MAPKs. We propose that short MAPK-binding stretches are created in disordered protein segments through a variety of ways and they represent a major resource for ancient signaling enzymes to acquire new regulatory roles. PMID:26538579

16. An evolutionary analysis of flightin reveals a conserved motif unique and widespread in Pancrustacea.

PubMed

Soto-Adames, Felipe N; Alvarez-Ortiz, Pedro; Vigoreaux, Jim O

2014-01-01

Flightin is a thick filament protein that in Drosophila melanogaster is uniquely expressed in the asynchronous, indirect flight muscles (IFM). Flightin is required for the structure and function of the IFM and is indispensable for flight in Drosophila. Given the importance of flight acquisition in the evolutionary history of insects, here we study the phylogeny and distribution of flightin. Flightin was identified in 69 species of hexapods in classes Collembola (springtails), Protura, Diplura, and insect orders Thysanura (silverfish), Dictyoptera (roaches), Orthoptera (grasshoppers), Pthiraptera (lice), Hemiptera (true bugs), Coleoptera (beetles), Neuroptera (green lacewing), Hymenoptera (bees, ants, and wasps), Lepidoptera (moths), and Diptera (flies and mosquitoes). Flightin was also found in 14 species of crustaceans in orders Anostraca (water flea), Cladocera (brine shrimp), Isopoda (pill bugs), Amphipoda (scuds, sideswimmers), and Decapoda (lobsters, crabs, and shrimps). Flightin was not identified in representatives of chelicerates, myriapods, or any species outside Pancrustacea (Tetraconata, sensu Dohle). Alignment of amino acid sequences revealed a conserved region of 52 amino acids, referred herein as WYR, that is bound by strictly conserved tryptophan (W) and arginine (R) and an intervening sequence with a high content of tyrosines (Y). This motif has no homologs in GenBank or PROSITE and is unique to flightin and paraflightin, a putative flightin paralog identified in decapods. A third motif of unclear affinities to pancrustacean WYR was observed in chelicerates. Phylogenetic analysis of amino acid sequences of the conserved motif suggests that paraflightin originated before the divergence of amphipods, isopods, and decapods. We conclude that flightin originated de novo in the ancestor of Pancrustacea > 500 MYA, well before the divergence of insects (~400 MYA) and the origin of flight (~325 MYA), and that its IFM-specific function in Drosophila is a more

17. Function-based classification of carbohydrate-active enzymes by recognition of short, conserved peptide motifs.

PubMed

Busk, Peter Kamp; Lange, Lene

2013-06-01

Functional prediction of carbohydrate-active enzymes is difficult due to low sequence identity. However, similar enzymes often share a few short motifs, e.g., around the active site, even when the overall sequences are very different. To exploit this notion for functional prediction of carbohydrate-active enzymes, we developed a simple algorithm, peptide pattern recognition (PPR), that can divide proteins into groups of sequences that share a set of short conserved sequences. When this method was used on 118 glycoside hydrolase 5 proteins with 9% average pairwise identity and representing four characterized enzymatic functions, 97% of the proteins were sorted into groups correlating with their enzymatic activity. Furthermore, we analyzed 8,138 glycoside hydrolase 13 proteins including 204 experimentally characterized enzymes with 28 different functions. There was a 91% correlation between group and enzyme activity. These results indicate that the function of carbohydrate-active enzymes can be predicted with high precision by finding short, conserved motifs in their sequences. The glycoside hydrolase 61 family is important for fungal biomass conversion, but only a few proteins of this family have been functionally characterized. Interestingly, PPR divided 743 glycoside hydrolase 61 proteins into 16 subfamilies useful for targeted investigation of the function of these proteins and pinpointed three conserved motifs with putative importance for enzyme activity. Furthermore, the conserved sequences were useful for cloning of new, subfamily-specific glycoside hydrolase 61 proteins from 14 fungi. In conclusion, identification of conserved sequence motifs is a new approach to sequence analysis that can predict carbohydrate-active enzyme functions with high precision. PMID:23524681

18. Clathrin light chains: arrays of protein motifs that regulate coated-vesicle dynamics.

PubMed

Brodsky, F M; Hill, B L; Acton, S L; Näthke, I; Wong, D H; Ponnambalam, S; Parham, P

1991-06-01

Polymerization of clathrin triskelions into clathrin coats and subsequent disassembly by the heat shock protein hsc70 control receptor-mediated pathways of intracellular transport. The clathrin light chains are major regulatory elements in these processes. These polypeptides consist of linear arrays of functional domains with distinctive sequence motifs. Comparison of unicellular and multicellular eukaryotes reveals differences in the numbers of clathrin light chains and in the functional domains they contain. PMID:1909824

19. Molecularly Defined Nanostructures Based on a Novel AAA-DDD Triple Hydrogen-Bonding Motif.

PubMed

Papmeyer, Marcus; Vuilleumier, Clément A; Pavan, Giovanni M; Zhurov, Konstantin O; Severin, Kay

2016-01-26

A facile and flexible method for the synthesis of a new AAA-DDD triple hydrogen-bonding motif is described. Polytopic supramolecular building blocks with precisely oriented AAA and DDD groups are thus accessible in few steps. These building blocks were used for the assembly of large macrocycles featuring four AAA-DDD interactions and a macrobicyclic complex with a total of six AAA-DDD interactions.

20. Reusable amine-based structural motifs for green house gas (CO2) fixation.

PubMed

Dalapati, Sasanka; Jana, Sankar; Saha, Rajat; Alam, Md Akhtarul; Guchhait, Nikhil

2012-07-01

A series of compounds with an amine based structural motif (ASM) have been synthesized for efficient atmospheric CO(2) fixation. The H-bonded ASM-bicarbonate complexes were formed with an in situ generated HCO(3)(-) ion. The complexes have been characterized by IR, (13)C NMR, and X-ray single-crystal structural analysis. ASM-bicarbonate salts have been converted to pure ASMs in quantitative yield under mild conditions for recycling processes.
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