AB21, a protein of unknown function from Agaricus bisporus. A case study on utilizing experimental and bioinformatical approaches for functional assignment of unknown proteins
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| Year of publication | 2018 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
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| Description | Progress in genome sequencing over the last two decades has led to the accumulation of a huge number of sequences in the public databases (currently over 126 million of protein entries). However, a significant fraction of them represents proteins that have not been experimentally characterized, and whose functions cannot be deduced from the sequence comparisons. Investigating the functions and properties of unknown proteins is therefore an important and challenging task to understanding the whole picture of processes that occur in living organisms, but also an opportunity to discover new aspects of life´s machinery. This work is focused on protein AB21 from the white button mushroom (Agaricus bisporus), one of the most widely cultivated mushroom in the world. AB21 is a 21 kDa protein, which shares no detectable sequence homology to any protein of known function. Hence, this work can be considered as a case study on utilizing different biophysical, structural and bioinformatical methods to investigate its possible biological role. The coding sequence of ab21 gene was determined and the gene was expressed in a recombinant form in E. coli. AB21 was characterized in terms of quaternary structure, stability and possible interactions with physiologically relevant ligands. The determined X ray structure of AB21 exhibited an interesting relation to bacterial pore-forming toxins of the ClyA superfamily. Finally, the naturally occuring protein was immunolocalized within the fruiting bodies of A. bisporus. |
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