PROSITE documentation PDOC51982

COMPASS (CMP) domain profile

The COMPASS (CMP) domain of about 100 amino acids is found in two protein families [1,2] :

• SATB (Special AT-rich binding protein) family proteins have emerged as key regulators that integrate higher-order chromatin organization with the regulation of gene expression. SATB family chromatin organizers are involved in long-range enhancer function, extension of chromatin modifications and dynamic tethering of chromatin loops, and play diverse and important roles in regulating the dynamic equilibrium of apoptosis, cell invasion, metastasis, proliferation, angiogenesis, and immune modulation. SATB family proteins consist of CMP and CUTL (see <PDOC51983>) domains at the N terminus, a homeodomain (HD) (see <PDOC00027>) at the C terminus, and tandem CUT domains (see <PDOC51042>) in the center [2,3,4,5,6].
• The Compass family proteins defective proventriculus (dve) from Drosophila, required for the formation of the proventriculus and proximodistal patterning of the wing disc, and dve-1 from Caenorhabditis elegans, required for embryonic development and maintenance of mitochondrial morphology. They contain the CMP domain as well as two atypical HDs [1,2,6].

The CMP domain adopts an ubiquitin-like fold comprising four antiparallel β-sheets that are flanked by four α-helices (see <PDB:3TUO>). The ubiquitin-like structure of the CMP domain has the ability to form tetramers, which indeed allows SATB function, since oligomerization is essential for high affinity DNA binding [4,5,7].

The profile we developed covers the entire CMP domain.