结构生物学sturcture biology explore-52.pdfVIP

123 Helicase structure and mechanism Jonathan M Caruthers and David B McKay* Structural information on helicase proteins has expanded (Mg2+-binding aspartic acid) motifs [2]. For the two largest recently beyond the DNA helicases Rep and PcrA, and the groups, commonly referred to as superfamilies 1 and 2 hepatitis C virus RNA helicase to include UvrB, members of (SF-1 and SF-2), a total of seven characteristic motifs were the DEA(D/H)-box RNA helicase family, examples of identified (Figure 1). These two superfamilies encompass DnaB-related helicases and RuvB. The expanding database of a large number of DNA and RNA helicases from archaea, structures has clarified the structural ‘theme and variations’ eubacteria, eukaryotes and viruses; they include represen- that relate the different helicase families. Furthermore, tatives that unwind duplexes in a 3′ to 5′ direction, as well information is emerging on the functions of the conserved as examples that unwind 5′ to 3′; hence, the motif-based helicase motifs and their participation in the mechanisms by segregation into SF-1 or SF-2 does not correlate with any which these proteins catalyze the remodeling of DNA and RNA particular substrate (DNA versus RNA), phylogenetic in ATP-dependent activities. source or feature of activity, such as direction of unwinding. Addresses A third superfamily (SF-3), which includes small putative Department of Structural Biology, Stanford University School of helicase domains of ~100 amino acid residues that are Medicine, Stanford, California 94305, USA found in DNA and RNA viruses, has only three conserved *e-mail: Dave.McKay@Stanford.edu motifs, including the two classical ATP-binding motifs. Current Opinion in Structural Biology 2002, 12:123–133 A fourth family consists of helicases that are related in