Human Lsg1 defines a family of essential GTPases that correlates with the evolution of compartmentalization.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Compartmentalization is a key feature of eukaryotic cells, but its evolution remains poorly understood. GTPases are the oldest enzymes that use nucleotides as substrates and they participate in a wide range of cellular processes. Therefore, they are ideal tools for comparative genomic studies aimed at understanding how aspects of biological complexity such as cellular compartmentalization evolved.

Results

We describe the identification and characterization of a unique family of circularly permuted GTPases represented by the human orthologue of yeast Lsg1p. We placed the members of this family in the phylogenetic context of the YlqF Related GTPase (YRG) family, which are present in Eukarya, Bacteria and Archea and include the stem cell regulator Nucleostemin. To ex

SUBMITTER: Reynaud EG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1262696 | biostudies-literature | 2005 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature