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PMID: 1549605 Published · ppublish English Comparative Study Journal Article

Unification of the ferritin family of proteins.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America ·Vol. 89 ·No. 6 ·1992-03-15 ·Pages 2419-23

Grossman MJ, Hinton SM, Minak-Bernero V, Slaughter C, Stiefel EI

Abstract

Ferritin is the iron-storage protein of eukaryotic organisms. The nucleotide sequence encoding Azotobacter vinelandii bacterioferritin, a hemoprotein, was determined. The deduced amino acid sequence reveals a high degree of identity with Escherichia coli bacterioferritin and a striking similarity to eukaryotic ferritins. Moreover, derivation of a global alignment shows that virtually all key residues specifying the unique structural motifs of eukaryotic ferritin are conserved or conservatively substituted in the A. vinelandii sequence. The alignment suggests specific methionine residues as heme-binding ligands in bacterioferritins. The overall sequence similarity with conservation of key structural residues implies that all ferritins form a unified family of proteins. The results implicate ferritins as proteins potentially common to all aerobic organisms and as such useful in taxonomic classification, evolutionary analysis, and environmental monitoring.

MeSH Terms
Amino Acid Sequence Animals Azotobacter vinelandii/genetics,metabolism Base Sequence Databases, Factual Ferritins/genetics Genes, Bacterial Horses Humans Models, Molecular Molecular Sequence Data Protein Conformation Rats Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid
Chemicals
Ferritins
Authors & Affiliations
5 authors, click to expand affiliations / ORCID
Grossman M J
Exxon Research and Engineering Co., Annandale, NJ 08801.
Hinton S M
Minak-Bernero V
Slaughter C
Stiefel E I
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Article Info
Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Abbr.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
ISSN
0027-8424
DOI
10.1073/pnas.89.6.2419
Published
1992-03-15
Pages
2419-23
Language
English
Region
United States
NLM ID
7505876
PMCID
PMC48669
Subset
IM
Databases
GENBANK
M83692
External Links
PubMed source DOI: 10.1073/pnas.89.6.2419 PMC Full Text View journal details
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