Distantly related lipocalins share two conserved clusters of hydrophobic residues: use in homology modeling.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Lipocalins are widely distributed in nature and are found in bacteria, plants, arthropoda and vertebra. In hematophagous arthropods, they are implicated in the successful accomplishment of the blood meal, interfering with platelet aggregation, blood coagulation and inflammation and in the transmission of disease parasites such as Trypanosoma cruzi and Borrelia burgdorferi. The pairwise sequence identity is low among this family, often below 30%, despite a well conserved tertiary structure. Under the 30% identity threshold, alignment methods do not correctly assign and align proteins. The only safe way to assign a sequence to that family is by experimental determination. However, these procedures are long and costly and cannot always be applied. A way to circumvent the ex

SUBMITTER: Adam B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2254393 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature