Identification and analysis of novel functional sites in human GD3-synthase.

ABSTRACT: GD3-synthase is a sialyltransferase that catalyzes the synthesis of ganglioside GD3 leading to the b- and c-series gangliosides. It contains four common sequence regions of vertebrate sialyltransferases, referred to as the L, S, III, and VS sialylmotifs, which have been identified in all vertebrate sialyltransferases that play important roles in spatial structure maintenance and protein functions. No 3D structural information, however, is currently available for vertebrate sialyltransferases. Using primary sequence of human GD3-synthase, we identified the structure of a prokaryotic sialyltransferase (CstII, also known as an alpha2,3/alpha2,8-sialyltransferase) as the template for protein homology modeling. Secondary structural alignment between these two proteins identified several conserv

SUBMITTER: Gu Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3956750 | biostudies-literature | 2008 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature