Evolutionary conservation

Annexins form an evolutionary conserved family of Ca2+ and phospholipid binding proteins implicated in membrane trafficking and the regulation of Ca2+ currents across membranes. 

Fatty acid transport proteins (FATPs) are an evolutionary conserved family of integral membrane proteins found at the plasma membrane and on internal membranes. FATPs facilitate the unidirectional uptake and/ or intracellular activation of unesterified long-chain and very long-chain fatty acids (LCFAs) into a variety of lipid-metabolizing cells and tissues. 

NF-kB is a dimeric, ubiquitously expressed, and evolutionary conserved transcription factor that plays a critical role in immune and inflammatory responses [1]. In mammals, the NF-kB family consists of five members NF-kB 1 (pl05/p50), NF-kB2 (pl00/p52), RelA (p65), cRel, and RelB. Structurally, NF-kB proteins share a highly conserved 300 amino acid... 

Small tfbiquitin-like modifier represents a family of evolutionary conserved proteins that are distantly related in amino-acid sequence to ubiquitin, but share the same structural folding with ubiquitin proteins. SUMO proteins are covalently conjugated to protein substrates by an isopeptide bond through their carboxyl termini. SUMO addition to lysine residues of target proteins, termed SUMOylation, mediates post-transla-tional modification and requires a set of enzymes that are distinct from those that act on ubiquitin. SUMOylation regulates the activity of a variety of tar get proteins including transcription factors. 

Fak (focal adhesion kinase) is expressed in most tissues and is evolutionary conserved across species. It is activated by integrin clustering and by stimulation of several G protein-coupled recqrtors and RTKs. Fak is associated with focal adhesions and regulates cell spreading and migration. The kinase is essential for embryonic development since the homozygote Fak knockout is embryonic lethal. Pyk2 (proline-rich tyrosine kinase 2), the second member of the Fak kinase family has a more restricted expression pattern (primarily neuronal and hematopoietic cells) and does not localize to focal adhesions. 

Haiti, F.-U. Neupert, W. (1990). Protein sorting to mitochondria Evolutionary conservations of folding and assembly. Science 247, 930-937. 

Inhibitory controls are found in the glomerular microcircuits which underlie the PB effect, and could represent a common model for the local functions of the AOB (Brennan, 1990 Taylor, 1991). Indeed, its simplicity has led to suggestions that it represents an evolutionary conserved neural subset (Fig. 5.4) for mate-recognition (Keveme, 1990... 

The most dramatic illustration of the evolutionary conservation of homeobox genes comes from experiments that swap Drosophila and mammalian cognates and test for functional equivalence. McGinnis and co-workers have reported remarkable phenotypic similarities in flies that misexpress Drosophila homeobox genes or their mammalian counterparts. Indeed, this ectopic expression assay in Drosophila indicates that the Drosophila and cognate mammalian homeobox proteins are essentially functionally identical. 

Lisztwan, j., et al., Association of human CUL-1 and ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme CDC34 with the F-box protein p45(SKP2) evidence for evolutionary conservation in the subunit composition of the CDC34-SCF pathway. Embo J, 1998, 37/2/, 368-83. 

Caspases are a family of evolutionary conserved cysteine proteases that cleave their substrates after an aspartic acid residue within a defined consensus sequence (Alnemri et al, 1996). They play a cracial role in the apoptotic program, as most of the characteristic features observed in apoptosis are attributable to their action (Eamshaw et al, 1999). They are... 

Palmer DK, O Day K, Margolis RL (1990) The centromere specific histone CENP-A is selectively retained in discrete foci in mattunaUan sperm nuclei. Chromosoma 100 32—36 Pandey NB, Marzluff WF (1987) The stem-loop structure at the 3 end of histone mRNA is necessary and sufficient for regulation of histone mRNA stabiUty. Mol Cell Biol 7 4557 559 Pehrson J, Fuji RN (1998) Evolutionary conservation of histone macroH2A subtypes and domains. Nucl Acids Res 26 2837-2842... 

Pehrson, J.R. and Fuji, R.N. (1998) Evolutionary conservation of macroH2A subtypes and domains. Nucleic Acids Res. 26, 2837-2842. 

Nunnari J, Fox TD, Walter P (1993) A mitochondrial protease with two catalytic subunits of nonoverlapping specificities. Science 262 1997-2004 Osborne AR, Rapoport , van den Berg (2005) Protein translocation by the Sec61/SecY channel. Annu Rev Cell Dev Biol 21 529-550 Paschen SA, Neupert W, Rapaport D (2005) Biogenesis of beta-barrel membrane proteins of mitochondria. Trends Biochem Sci 30 575-582 Paschen SA et al. (2003) Evolutionary conservation of biogenesis of beta-barrel membrane proteins. Nature 426 862-866... 

Bernstein, R.M., Schluter, S.E, Lake, D.F., Marchalonis, J.J. (1994). Evolutionary conservation and molecular cloning of the recombinase activating gene 1. Biochem. Biophys. Res. Comm. 205, 687-692. 

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