From the structure and function to the design of modular proteins

• Unité de recherche: PCRD EU
• Numéro de projet: 96.0056
• Titre du projet anglais: From the structure and function to the design of modular proteins

Mots-clé (Anglais)

Modulins; coiled-coil; cartilage oligomeric matrix protein COMP; cartilage matrix protein CMF /matrilin; oligomerization

Autre Numéro de projet (Anglais)

EU project number: BIO4CT960662

Programme de recherche (Anglais)

EU-programme: 4. Frame Research Programme - 4.1 Biotechnology

Description succincte (Anglais)

See abstract

Partenaires et organisations internationales (Anglais)

Coordinator: Centre national de la recherche scientifique (F)

Résumé des résultats (Abstract) (Anglais)

Our contribution to the EU project was the development of oligomerization domains, which were used by us and by other groups for the design of modular proteins by protein engineering. We expressed the five-stranded coiled-coil domain of cartilage oligomeric matrix protein (COMP) and the three-stranded coiled-coil domain of matrilin/CMP in E-coli and in mammalian cells an solved the structure of both domains by x-ray crystallography or by NMR spectroscopy.

The domains were then fused with E-cadherin and with cell adhesion receptors. In a Swiss group in Lausanne the COMP domain was used to improve the inhibitory activity of FasL and CD4OL. Very recently we used a new trimeric oligomerization domain, which does not belong to the family of coiled-coil domains for effective stabilization of short collagen triple helices and publications on this new domain are in progress.

The future potential of our work is the use of the oligomerization domains for changing the properties of functional proteins in protein design.

Références bases de données (Anglais)

Swiss Database: Euro-DB of the
State Secretariat for Education and Research
Hallwylstrasse 4
CH-3003 Berne, Switzerland
Tel. [phone]
Swiss Project-Number: 96.0056