Abstract
Membrane-embedded voltage-activated potassium channels (Kv) bind intracellular scaffold proteins, such as the Post Synaptic Density 95 (PSD-95) protein, using a conserved PDZ-binding motif located at the channels' C-terminal tip. This interaction underlies Kv-channel clustering, and is important for the proper assembly and functioning of the synapse. Here we demonstrate that the C-terminal segments of Kv channels adjacent to the PDZ-binding motif are intrinsically disordered. Phylogenetic analysis of the Kv channel family reveals a cluster of channel sequences belonging to three out of the four main channel families, for which an association is demonstrated between the presence of the consensus terminal PDZ-binding motif and the intrinsically disordered nature of the immediately adjacent C-terminal segment. Our observations, combined with a structural analogy to the N-terminal intra-molecular ball-and-chain mechanism for Kv channel inactivation, suggest that the C-terminal disordered segments of these channel families encode an inter-molecular fishing rod-like mechanism for K+ channel binding to scaffold proteins.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1546-1550 |
Number of pages | 5 |
Journal | Bioinformatics |
Volume | 22 |
Issue number | 13 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 1 Jul 2006 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Statistics and Probability
- Biochemistry
- Molecular Biology
- Computer Science Applications
- Computational Theory and Mathematics
- Computational Mathematics