Archaeal-like chaperonins in bacteria.

ABSTRACT: Chaperonins (CPN) are ubiquitous oligomeric protein machines that mediate the ATP-dependent folding of polypeptide chains. These chaperones have not only been assigned stress response and normal housekeeping functions but also have a role in certain human disease states. A longstanding convention divides CPNs into two groups that share many conserved sequence motifs but differ in both structure and distribution. Group I complexes are the well known GroEL/ES heat-shock proteins in bacteria, that also occur in some species of mesophilic archaea and in the endosymbiotic organelles of eukaryotes. Group II CPNs are found only in the cytosol of archaea and eukaryotes. Here we report a third, divergent group of CPNs found in several species of bacteria. We propose to name these Group III CPNs bec

SUBMITTER: Techtmann SM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2996707 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature