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Endothelins (ET's) are a family of potent mammalian vasoconstrictor peptides [1,2,3]. Sarafotoxins (SRTX) and bibrotoxin (BTX) are cardiotoxins from the venom of snakes of the Atractaspis family, structurally and functionally [4,5] similar to endothelin. The peptides currently known to belonging to the ET/SRTX family are:

• Endothelin 1 (ET-1).
• Endothelin 2 (ET-2) which is also known in mouse as Vasoactive Intestinal Contractor (VIC).
• Endothelin 3 (ET-3).
• Sarafotoxins SRTX-A, -B, -C and -D from Atractaspis engaddensis.
• Bibrotoxin (BTX) from Atractaspis bibroni.

As shown in the following schematic representation, these peptides which are 21 residues long contain two intramolecular disulfide bonds.

                        +-------------+
                        |             |
                        CxCxxxxxxxCxxxCxxxxxx
                          |       |
                          +-------+

'C': conserved cysteine involved in a disulfide bond.

As a signature pattern for this family of proteins, we have taken the conserved residues in the disulfide loops region.

In addition to endothelin, the precursors of ETs contain an endothelin- like domain which is also detected by this pattern.

The precursor of sarafotoxins is a large protein that contains 12 copies of various isoforms of the toxin [6].

May 2004 / Text revised.

PROSITE method (with tools and information) covered by this documentation:

ENDOTHELIN, PS00270; Endothelin family signature  (PATTERN)

Consensus pattern: C-x-C-x(4)-D-x(2)-C-x(2)-[FY]-C The 4 C's are involved in disulfide bonds Sequences known to belong to this class detected by the pattern: ALL Other sequence(s) detected in Swiss-Prot: NONE.

• Retrieve an alignment of Swiss-Prot true positive hits:   Clustal format, color, condensed view  / Clustal format, color  / Clustal format, plain text  / Fasta format • Retrieve the sequence logo from the alignment • Taxonomic tree view of all Swiss-Prot/TrEMBL entries matching PS00270 • Retrieve a list of all Swiss-Prot/TrEMBL entries matching PS00270 • Scan Swiss-Prot/TrEMBL entries against PS00270 • view ligand binding statistics

Matching PDB structures: 1EDN 1EDP 1SRB 1T7H ... [ALL]

1	Authors	Yanagisawa M., Masaki T.
	Title	Molecular biology and biochemistry of the endothelins.
	Source	Trends Pharmacol. Sci. 10:374-378(1989).
	PubMed ID	2690429

2	Authors	Simonson M.S., Dunn M.J.
	Title	Cellular signaling by peptides of the endothelin gene family.
	Source	FASEB J. 4:2989-3000(1990).
	PubMed ID	2168326

3	Authors	Rubanyi G.M., Parker Botelho L.H.
	Title	Endothelins.
	Source	FASEB J. 5:2713-2720(1991).
	PubMed ID	1916094

4	Authors	Kloog Y., Sokolovsky M.
	Title	Similarities in mode and sites of action of sarafotoxins and endothelins.
	Source	Trends Pharmacol. Sci. 10:212-214(1989).
	PubMed ID	2549664

5	Authors	Sokolovsky M.
	Title	Endothelins and sarafotoxins: physiological regulation, receptor subtypes and transmembrane signaling.
	Source	Trends Biochem. Sci. 16:261-264(1991).
	PubMed ID	1656557

6	Authors	Ducancel F., Matre V., Dupont C., Lajeunesse E., Wollberg Z., Bdolah A., Kochva E., Boulain J.C.C., Menez A.
	Title	Cloning and sequence analysis of cDNAs encoding precursors of sarafotoxins. Evidence for an unusual 'rosary-type' organization.
	Source	J. Biol. Chem. 268:3052-3055(1993).
	PubMed ID	8428983

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