Leucine residues ribonuclease

Leucine residues 2, 5, 7, 12, 20, and 24 of the motif are invariant in both type A and type B repeats of the ribonuclease inhibitor. An examination of more than 500 tandem repeats from 68 different proteins has shown that residues 20 and 24 can be other hydrophobic residues, whereas the remaining four leucine residues are present in all repeats. On the basis of the crystal structure of the ribonuclease inhibitor and the important structural role of these leucine residues, it has been possible to construct plausible structural models of several other proteins with leucine-rich motifs, such as the extracellular domains of the thyrotropin and gonadotropin receptors. 

Figure 4.12 Schematic diagram illustrating the role of the conserved leucine residues (green) in the leucine-rich motif in stabilizing the P-loop-(x structural module. In the ribonuclease inhibitor, leucine residues 2, 5, and 7 from the P strand pack against leucine residues 17, 20, and 24 from the a helix as well as leucine residue 12 from the loop to form a hydrophobic core between the P strand and the a helix.

Ribonuclease Ti is fairly resistant to proteases. The threonine residue at the carboxyl terminal of the enzyme can be removed by carboxy-peptidase A without loss of activity (67). Leucine aminopeptidase does not release amino acids from the amino terminal (68). Ribonuclease Ti is not inactivated by trypsin or chymotrypsin in the presence of 0.2 M phosphate (69), which probably binds the enzyme and protects it from inactivation (67). Treatment of the enzyme with trypsin in the absence of phosphate inactivates it (67). Ribonuclease Tj is hydrolyzed by pepsin with progressive loss of activity (69). 

Leucine-rich repeats represent binding motifs found in a wide variety of both plant and mammalian proteins (Kobe and Kajava, 2001). These are involved in a multitude of protein-protein interactions. The sequence of porcine ribonuclease inhibitor, for example, displays a leucine-rich repeat (LRR) of length 27-29 residues that occurs 15 times in tandem (Fig. 9). Likewise, the family of small leucine-rich proteoglycans that includes biglycan, decorin, epiphycan, fibromodulin, keratocan, and lumican... 

Fig. 9. The conformation adopted by a leucine-rich repeat (LRR) is that of a /9-strand followed by an o-helix. In porcine ribonuclease inhibitor, a /9-strand (residues 2-8) is connected to an o-helix (residues 14—27) by a connecting loop (residues 9-13). A horseshoe-shaped structure is formed and is exemplified in the crystal structure of ribonuclease inhibitor (PDB 1A4Y Kobe and Deisenhofer, 1993). This has an inner concave surface formed by curved /9-sheets and an outer convex surface formed by oh el ices. The leucines and other large apolar residues form the hydrophobic core of the structure.

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