Amino Acid Composition in Various Types of Nucleic Acid-Binding Proteins

• Main Authors: Martin Bartas, Jiří Červeň, Simona Guziurová, Kristyna Slychko, Petr Pečinka
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-01-01
• Series: International Journal of Molecular Sciences
• Subjects: DNA; RNA; protein binding; G-quadruplex; triplex; i-motif
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/22/2/922

Nucleic acid-binding proteins are traditionally divided into two categories: With the ability to bind DNA or RNA. In the light of new knowledge, such categorizing should be overcome because a large proportion of proteins can bind both DNA and RNA. Another even more important features of nucleic acid-binding proteins are so-called sequence or structure specificities. Proteins able to bind nucleic acids in a sequence-specific manner usually contain one or more of the well-defined structural motifs (zinc-fingers, leucine zipper, helix-turn-helix, or helix-loop-helix). In contrast, many proteins do not recognize nucleic acid sequence but rather local DNA or RNA structures (G-quadruplexes, i-motifs, triplexes, cruciforms, left-handed DNA/RNA form, and others). Finally, there are also proteins recognizing both sequence and local structural properties of nucleic acids (e.g., famous tumor suppressor p53). In this mini-review, we aim to summarize current knowledge about the amino acid composition of various types of nucleic acid-binding proteins with a special focus on significant enrichment and/or depletion in each category.