ional motions."
MitoNEET, which binds to the diabetes drug, Actos, immediately caught the attention of researchers when it was discovered. It has a unique ability to bind and store iron-based molecules in an iron-sulfur cluster. Iron is an essential element for all life, but it is also highly toxic, and mitoNEET is the only iron-handling protein that is known to sit on the wall of the mitochondria, one of the key structures inside a cell.
The protein's biological functions are still being unraveled. Interestingly, scientists have shown that mitoNEET sits on the outer mitochondrial wall with its potentially toxic payload of iron-sulfur molecules facing toward the cell's cytoplasm, the gel-like fluid that fills the cell. Discovery of the unique binding mode of the protein's iron-sulfur cluster led the Jennings group to show that the cluster can be delivered into the mitochondria. In addition, its sister protein interacts with proteins that participate in apoptosis -- the process cells use to kill themselves when they are no longer viable.
"I think mitoNEET is a protein that could be your best friend or your worst enemy," Jennings said. "There's some evidence that it may act as a sensor for oxidative stress and that it can lose its toxic iron-sulfur cluster under stress conditions. Depending upon where the iron ends up, that could lead to drastic problems inside the cell."
Proteins are strands of amino acids that are produced from DNA blueprints, but their shapes can provide important clues about their function. To find out how mitoNEET's control and release of its iron-sulfur payload might be related to its shape, Baxter used computer simulations to study how the protein folds, as well as the functional motions of two similar shapes that could be biologically important. In one of these shapes, there is a slight intertwining of two arms that extend away from the iron-cluster pocket. In the other, the arms also extend but are not int
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| Contact: Jade Boyd jadeboyd@rice.edu 713-348-6778 Rice University Source:Eurekalert |
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