Protein–DNA Interactions

Marianne Rooman, Free University of Brussels, Brussels, Belgium
René Wintjens, Free University of Brussels, Brussels, Belgium

Published online: May 2005

DOI: 10.1038/npg.els.0003906

The control of the information stored in the genome is managed by DNA-binding proteins, which are therefore of fundamental importance to cellular life. A wide diversity of such proteins, exhibiting various DNA-binding modes, specificities and functions, is observed in all living organisms.

Keywords: DNA-binding enzymes; transcription regulation; structure motifs; proteins–DNA affinity; binding specificity

Figure 1. Space-filling model of 434 Cro in complex with the Or1 DNA operator. The helices of Cro are in green and the coil regions in yellow-green; the DNA phosphate backbone is in dark blue and the base pairs in light blue.
Figure 2. Illustration of the families of DNA-binding domains (colour ribbons) in complex with DNA (dark grey sticks). Zinc ions are depicted as yellow spheres. For each family, several members are listed and a characteristic structure is represented. For the DNA-binding enzymes and miscellaneous families, the member chosen to be depicted is indicated.
Figure 3. Example of heteromultimeric protein–DNA complex, consisting of the DNA-binding domain of NFAT1 (nuclear factor of activated T cells 1), Fos and Jun bound to DNA. Proteins are depicted in yellow (NFAT1), green (Fos) and blue (Jun) ribbons. The DNA molecule is represented by ball and sticks; carbon atoms are in grey, oxygen in red, nitrogen in blue, and phosphorus in orange.
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 Further Reading
    book Banaszak LJ (2000) Foundations of Structural Biology. London: Academic Press.
    book Biomolecular Structure and Modelling group (2000) Summary of DNA-binding protein structural families, grouped by DNA recognition motif. A structural classification of all protein–DNA complexes solved by X-ray crystallography to a resolution of 3.0 angstroms or better. University College London. http://www.biochem.ucl.ac.uk/bsm/prot_dna/prot_dna_cover.html.
    book Branden C and Tooze J (1998) Introduction to Protein Structure, 2nd edn. New York: Garland Publishing.
    book Goldman A and Ollis DL (1990) "Interaction on nucleic acids with proteins". In: Blackburn GM and Gait MJ (eds) Nucleic Acids in Chemistry and Biology, pp. 337–381. Oxford: IRL Press
    book Kyushu Institute of Technology (2003) The Biomolecules Gallery. An image database providing a wide spectrum of high quality pictures of biomolecules, such as nucleic acids, proteins and their complexes. Kyushu Institute of Technology, Japan. http://gibk26.bse.kyutech.ac.jp/jouhou/image/gallery.html.
    book Travers A and Buckle M (2000) DNA–Protein Interactions. A practical approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Related Sub-Topics:

Protein Structure | Nucleic Acid Structure | DNA Structure and Function | Biomolecular Interactions | Information Flow | Nucleic Acids: Structure, Function, Metabolism
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Article Title: Protein–DNA Interactions
 
How to Cite close
Rooman, Marianne, and Wintjens, René(May 2005) Protein–DNA Interactions. In: eLS. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester. http://www.els.net [doi: 10.1038/npg.els.0003906]