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Comments on van der Voorn L et al. (1988) Worm Breeder's Gazette "characterization of G-proteins in C elegans." (0)
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van der Voorn L, Ploegh HL, & Plasterk RHA (1988). characterization of G-proteins in C elegans. Worm Breeder's Gazette, 10(3), 63. Unpublished information; cite only with author permission.
Guanine nucleotide-binding regulatory proteins (G-proteins) are a family of proteins involved in receptor-mediated signal transduction. G-proteins are heterotrimers, composed of alpha-, - and gamma- subunits. The alpha- subunit, which binds GTP, is specific for each G- protein, whereas common - and gamma- subunits may be found in some G- proteins. Subspecies of the alpha- subunit can be distinguished by their characteristic susceptibility to ADP-ribosylation catalyzed by cholera toxin and/or pertussis toxin. We carried out ADP-ribosylation on a crude membrane fraction prepared from C. elegans and found a polypeptide of 40 kD specifically labelled. Moreover, antisera raised in rabbits against purified G-proteins from human and bovine brain, when used in Western blots on extracts from C. elegans, likewise recognized a polypeptide of appr. 40 kD. Combined, these findings argue for the existence of conserved C. elegans G-protein alpha- subunit(s) with remarkable similarity to their bovine and human counterparts. In addition to the alpha-related polypeptides, the same antisera revealed the presence of a C. elegans-polypeptide with a mobility identical to that of authentic human or bovine -subunit. By screening a C. elegans library with a bovine -probe, 12 independent hybridizing clones were isolated. Partial sequencing of one of these clones indicated the presence of a gene highly homogogous to -sequences already known. Over a stretch of 64 amino acids, 83% similarity with the bovine and human -sequences is found (see box), confirming the identity of the C. elegans -subunit gene. Further characterization of the -clones and isolation of clones encoding the C. elegans alpha-subunits is underway. [See Figure 1]