The Cysteine-rich Protein Family of Highly Related LIM Domain Proteins *
- Ralf Weiskirchen(1),
- Josephine D. Pino(2)(§),
- Teresita Macalma(2),
- Klaus Bister(1)(¶)(**) and
- Mary C. Beckerle(2)(¶)(§§)
- From the (1) Institute of Biochemistry, University of Innsbruck, Peter-Mayr-Straße 1a, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria and the
- (2) Department of Biology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah
- ¶ To whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel.: 801-581-4485 (M. C. B.) or 43-512-507-5271 (K. B.); Fax: 801-581-4668 (M. C. B.) or 43-512-507-2894 (K. B.).
Abstract
Here we describe a family of closely related LIM domain proteins in avian cells. The LIM motif defines a zinc-binding domain that is found in a variety of transcriptional regulators, proto-oncogene products, and proteins associated with sites of cell-substratum contact. One type of LIM-domain protein, called the cysteine-rich protein (CRP), is characterized by the presence of two LIM domains linked to short glycine-rich repeats and a potential nuclear localization signal. We have identified and characterized two evolutionarily conserved members of the CRP family, CRP1 and CRP2, in chicken and quail. Expression of the genes encoding both CRP1 and CRP2 is differentially regulated in normal versus transformed cells, raising the possibility that members of the CRP family may function in control of cell growth and differentiation.
Footnotes
-
↵§ Recipient of a National Research Service Award Predoctoral Fellowship from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.
-
↵** Supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SFB274-B1) and the Fonds der Chemischen Industrie.
-
↵§§ Supported by American Cancer Society Grant CB-134; recipient of a Faculty Research Award from the American Cancer Society (FRA-443).
-
↵* This work was supported in part by National Institutes of Health Grant CA 42014 (for partial support of the Biotechnology Core Facility at the University of Utah). The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore by hereby marked “advertisement” in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.
-
↵1 The abbreviations used are:
- CRP
-
cysteine-rich protein
- pBS
-
pBluescript KS
- RACE
-
rapid amplification of cDNA ends
- kb
-
kilobase(s)
- MLP
-
muscle LIM protein.
-
↵2R. Weiskirchen and K. Bister, unpublished results.
-
- Received March 8, 1995.
- Revision received August 16, 1995.
- © 1995 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.
