Conservation throughout vertebrate evolution of the predicted beta-strands in myelin basic protein.

To identify functionally important parts of the 18.5-kDa myelin basic protein (MBP), the amino acid sequences from 10 species ranging from shark to human were aligned using the SEQHP computer program. The residues that are invariant or very conservatively substituted (Arg/Lys, Ser/Thr, Ile/Leu, Asp/Glu) among all 10 proteins were scored. Of the 72 conserved residues in the 170-residue human protein (42% conserved), 32 are found within the five beta-strands previously predicted (45 residues, 71% conserved), 23 within the small-loops region (42 residues, 55% conserved), but only 17 within the large-loops region (83 residues, 20% conserved). Of the 22 hydrophobic residues within the predicted beta-sheet of human MBP, 20 hydrophobic residues remain in the shark protein, 19 of them in the same positions. In contrast, there are 10 hydrophobic residues elsewhere in the human protein, but only 7 remain in the shark protein and only 1 of them is in the same position. The triprolyl sequence found in all mammalian MBPs and in the chicken MBP is not conserved in the shark protein. The four alternately spliced forms of mouse MBP can be accommodated by the beta-structural model, but not the 17-kDa human MBP, which lacks exon 5. These findings confirm the crucial role of the hydrophobic residues in the predicted beta-sheet for the structure and function of the protein. It seems likely that the conserved portions of the protein make an important contribution to the highly ordered lamellar structure of myelin.