the homer family proteins荷马家族蛋白质.pdfVIP

Protein family review The Homer family proteins Yoko Shiraishi-Yamaguchi*† and Teiichi Furuichi* Addresses: *Laboratory for Molecular Neurobiology, RIKEN Brain Science Institute, 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako, Saitama 351-0198, Japan. †Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Nagasaki University School of Medicine, 1-12-4 Sakamoto, Nagasaki, Nagasaki 852-8523, Japan. Correspondence: Teiichi Furuichi. Email: tfuruichi@brain.riken.jp Published: 21 February 2007 Genome Biology 2007, 8:206 (doi:10.1186/gb-2007-8-2-206) The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at /2007/8/2/206 © 2007 BioMed Central Ltd Summary The Homer family of adaptor proteins consists of three members in mammals, and homologs are also known in other animals but not elsewhere. They are predominantly localized at the post- synaptic density in mammalian neurons and act as adaptor proteins for many postsynaptic density proteins. As a result of alternative splicing each member has several variants, which are classified primarily into the long and short forms. The long Homer forms are constitutively expressed and consist of two major domains: the amino-terminal target-binding domain, which includes an Enabled/vasodilator-stimulated phosphoprotein (Ena/VASP) homology 1 (EVH1) domain, and the carboxy-terminal self-assembly domain containing a coiled-coil structure and leucine zipper motif. Multimers of long Homer proteins, coupled through their carboxy-terminal domains, are thought to form protein clusters with other postsynaptic density proteins, which are bound through the amino-terminal domains. Such Homer-mediated clustering probably regulates or facilitates signal transduction or cross-talk between target protei