Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2005 Sep;30(9):484-9.
doi: 10.1016/j.tibs.2005.07.008.

Structural disorder throws new light on moonlighting

Peter Tompa  1 , Csilla Szász, László Buday
Affiliations
Review

Structural disorder throws new light on moonlighting

Peter Tompa et al. Trends Biochem Sci. 2005 Sep.

Abstract

A basic mechanism by which individual proteins can increase network complexity is moonlighting, whereby a given protein fulfils more than one function. Traditionally, this phenomenon is attributed to separate binding surfaces of globular, folded proteins but we suggest that intrinsically unstructured proteins (IUPs) might provide radically different mechanisms. Eleven IUPs have been identified that suggest that the structural malleability of IUPs gives rise to unprecedented cases of moonlighting by eliciting opposing (inhibiting and activating) action on different partners or even the same partner molecule. Unlike classical cases, these proteins use the same region or overlapping interaction surfaces to exert distinct effects and employ non-conventional mechanisms to switch function, enabled by their capacity to adopt different conformations upon binding. Owing to the apparent functional benefits, we expect to see many more examples of this parsimonious use of protein material in complex metabolic networks.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources