PROSITE documentation PDOC00382LIM zinc-binding domain signature and profile
Recently [1,2] a number of proteins have been found to contain a conserved cysteine-rich domain of about 60 amino-acid residues. These proteins are:
- Caenorhabditis elegans mec-3; a protein required for the differentiation of the set of six touch receptor neurons in this nematode.
- Caenorhabditis elegans lin-11; a protein required for the asymmetric division of vulval blast cells.
- Vertebrate insulin gene enhancer binding protein isl-1. Isl-1 binds to one of the two cis-acting protein-binding domains of the insulin gene.
- Vertebrate homeobox proteins lim-1, lim-2 (lim-5) and lim3.
- Vertebrate lmx-1, which acts as a transcriptional activator by binding to the FLAT element; a β-cell-specific transcriptional enhancer found in the insulin gene.
- Mammalian LH-2, a transcriptional regulatory protein involved in the control of cell differentiation in developing lymphoid and neural cell types.
- Drosophila protein apterous, required for the normal development of the wing and halter imaginal discs.
- Vertebrate protein kinases LIMK-1 and LIMK-2.
- Mammalian rhombotins. Rhombotin 1 (RBTN1 or TTG-1) and rhombotin-2 (RBTN2 or TTG-2) are proteins of about 160 amino acids whose genes are disrupted by chromosomal translocations in T-cell leukemia.
- Mammalian and avian cysteine-rich protein (CRP), a 192 amino-acid protein of unknown function. Seems to interact with zyxin.
- Mammalian cysteine-rich intestinal protein (CRIP), a small protein which seems to have a role in zinc absorption and may function as an intracellular zinc transport protein.
- Vertebrate paxillin, a cytoskeletal focal adhesion protein.
- Mouse testin. Mouse testin should not be confused with rat testin which is a thiol protease homolog (see <PDOC00126>).
- Sunflower pollen specific protein SF3.
- Chicken zyxin. Zyxin is a low-abundance adhesion plaque protein which has been shown to interact with CRP.
- Yeast protein LRG1 which is involved in sporulation [4].
- Yeast rho-type GTPase activating protein RGA1/DBM1.
- Caenorhabditis elegans homeobox protein ceh-14.
- Caenorhabditis elegans homeobox protein unc-97.
- Yeast hypothetical protein YKR090w.
- Caenorhabditis elegans hypothetical proteins C28H8.6.
These proteins generally have two tandem copies of a domain, called LIM (for Lin-11 Isl-1 Mec-3) in their N-terminal section. Zyxin and paxillin are exceptions in that they contains respectively three and four LIM domains at their C-terminal extremity. In apterous, isl-1, LH-2, lin-11, lim-1 to lim-3, lmx-1 and ceh-14 and mec-3 there is a homeobox domain some 50 to 95 amino acids after the LIM domains.
In the LIM domain, there are seven conserved cysteine residues and a histidine. The arrangement followed by these conserved residues is C-x(2)-C-x(16,23)-H-x(2)-[CH]-x(2)-C-x(2)-C-x(16,21)-C-x(2,3)-[CHD]. The LIM domain binds two zinc ions [5]. LIM does not bind DNA, rather it seems to act as interface for protein-protein interaction. We developed a pattern that spans the first half of the LIM domain.
Last update:April 2005 / Profile revised.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PROSITE methods (with tools and information) covered by this documentation:
1 | Authors | Freyd G. Kim S.K. Horvitz H.R. |
Title | Novel cysteine-rich motif and homeodomain in the product of the Caenorhabditis elegans cell lineage gene lin-11. | |
Source | Nature 344:876-879(1990). | |
PubMed ID | 1970421 |
2 | Authors | Baltz R. Evrard J.-L. Domon C. Steinmetz A. |
Title | A LIM motif is present in a pollen-specific protein. | |
Source | Plant Cell 4:1465-1466(1992). | |
PubMed ID | 1467648 | |
DOI | 10.1105/tpc.4.12.1465 |
3 | Authors | Sanchez-Garcia I. Rabbitts T.H. |
Source | Trends Genet. 10:315-320(1994). |
4 | Authors | Mueller A. Xu G. Wells R. Hollenberg C.P. Piepersberg W. |
Source | Nucleic Acids Res. 22:3151-3154(1994). |
5 | Authors | Michelsen J.W. Schmeichel K.L. Beckerle M.C. Winge D.R. |
Title | The LIM motif defines a specific zinc-binding protein domain. | |
Source | Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 90:4404-4408(1993). | |
PubMed ID | 8506279 |
PROSITE is copyrighted by the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics and distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) License, see prosite_license.html.
View entry in original PROSITE document format
View entry in raw text format (no links)