Journal
NUCLEIC ACIDS RESEARCH
Volume 36, Issue 4, Pages 1309-1320Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkm1160
Keywords
-
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Minichromosome maintenance (MCM) helicases are the presumptive replicative helicases, thought to separate the two strands of chromosomal DNA during replication. In archaea, the catalytic activity resides within the C-terminal region of the MCM protein. In Methanothermobacter thermautotrophicus the N-terminal portion of the protein was shown to be involved in protein multimerization and binding to single and double stranded DNA. MCM homologues from many archaeal species have highly conserved predicted amino acid similarity in a loop located between 7 and 8 in the N-terminal part of the molecule. This high degree of conservation suggests a functional role for the loop. Mutational analysis and biochemical characterization of the conserved residues suggest that the loop participates in communication between the N-terminal portion of the helicase and the C-terminal catalytic domain. Since similar residues are also conserved in the eukaryotic MCM proteins, the data presented here suggest a similar coupling between the N-terminal and catalytic domain of the eukaryotic enzyme.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available