Phylogeny and evolution of Rab7 and Rab9 proteins.

ABSTRACT:

Background

An important role in the evolution of intracellular trafficking machinery in eukaryotes played small GTPases belonging to the Rab family known as pivotal regulators of vesicle docking, fusion and transport. The Rab family is very diversified and divided into several specialized subfamilies. We focused on the VII functional group comprising Rab7 and Rab9, two related subfamilies, and analysed 210 sequences of these proteins. Rab7 regulates traffic from early to late endosomes and from late endosome to vacuole/lysosome, whereas Rab9 participates in transport from late endosomes to the trans-Golgi network.

Results

Although Rab7 and Rab9 proteins are quite small and show heterogeneous rates of substitution in different lineages, we found a phylogenetic signal and infe

SUBMITTER: Mackiewicz P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2693434 | biostudies-literature | 2009 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature