Home | Contact

Vertebrate endogenous opioids neuropeptides are released by post-translational proteolytic processing of precursor proteins. These precursor proteins consist of a signal sequence followed by a conserved region of about 50 residues, a variable length region and the sequence of the various neuropeptides. Three types of precursors are currently known:

• Preproenkephalin A (gene PENK) which is processed to produce the peptides Met-enkephalin (6 copies) and Leu-enkephalin,
• Preproenkephalin B (gene PDYN) which is processed to produce the peptides neoendorphin, dynorphin, leumorphin, rimorphin and leu-enkephalin.
• Prepronocipeptin (gene PNOC) which is processed to produce the peptides nociceptin (orphanin FQ) as well as two other potential neuropeptides.

The conserved region in the N-terminal of these precursors contains six cysteines that are probably involved in disulfide bonds. This region could be important for the processing of the neuropeptides [1].

May 2004 / Text revised.

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

OPIOIDS_PRECURSOR, PS01252; Endogenous opioids neuropeptides precursors signature  (PATTERN)

Consensus pattern: C-x(3)-C-x(2)-C-x(2)-[KRH]-x(6,7)-[LIF]-[DNS]-x(3)-C-x-[LIVM]-[EQ]-C-[EQ]-x(8)-W-x(2)-C The 6 C's may be 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 PS01252 • Retrieve a list of all Swiss-Prot/TrEMBL entries matching PS01252 • Scan Swiss-Prot/TrEMBL entries against PS01252 • view ligand binding statistics

1	Authors	Mollereau C., Simons M.-J., Soularue P., Liners F., Vassart G., Meunier J.-C., Parmentier M.
	Title	Structure, tissue distribution, and chromosomal localization of the prepronociceptin gene.
	Source	Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 93:8666-8670(1996).
	PubMed ID	8710928

PROSITE is copyright. It is produced by the SIB Swiss Institute Bioinformatics. There are no restrictions on its use by non-profit institutions as long as its content is in no way modified. Usage by and for commercial entities requires a license agreement. For information about the licensing scheme send an email to

Prosite License or see: prosite_license.html.


View entry in original PROSITE document format
View entry in raw text format (no links)

SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics | Disclaimer