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SGEBP, a giant protein from starfish oocytes able to interact with ERK
Author(s) -
Vergé Valérie,
Lozano JeanClaude,
Schatt Philippe,
Peaucellier Gérard
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
molecular reproduction and development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.745
H-Index - 105
eISSN - 1098-2795
pISSN - 1040-452X
DOI - 10.1002/mrd.22210
Subject(s) - biology , starfish , mapk/erk pathway , microbiology and biotechnology , open reading frame , gene , protein kinase a , kinase , protein domain , genetics , peptide sequence , ecology
SUMMARY The mitogen‐activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway is a key regulator of animal meiotic divisions. It involves cascades of kinases whose specificity has been shown to depend on binding proteins acting as scaffolds. We searched for proteins interacting with starfish extracellular signal‐regulated kinase (ERK) using the yeast two‐hybrid system. An interacting clone was found to encode the 5′ region of a giant 16.7‐kb transcript encoded by an intronless gene. The corresponding 630‐kDa protein could not be detected by Western blot, but the meiotic spindle was labelled by immunolocalization with an antibody against the ERK‐binding domain. A related gene was found in the genome of another starfish species, and similarities were also found to a 42.9‐kb open reading frame in the sea urchin genome. Yet, no conserved protein‐binding domain was detected in the amino acid sequence(s) compared to all the known motifs. Structure prediction software indicated that the encoded proteins are probably disordered while a query of the disordered protein database indicated some similarity with vertebrates microtubule‐associated protein 2 (MAP2). This predicts that SGEBP may function as a space‐filling polymer, having a role in both cytoskeleton organization and ERK targeting. Mol. Reprod. Dev. 80: 816–825, 2013. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc .