Title: Functional similarities between the dictyostelium protein AprA and the human protein dipeptidyl-peptidase IV Herlihy SE, Tang Y, Phillips JE, Gomer RH Ref: Protein Science, 26:578, 2017 : PubMed
Autocrine proliferation repressor protein A (AprA) is a protein secreted by Dictyostelium discoideum cells. Although there is very little sequence similarity between AprA and any human protein, AprA has a predicted structural similarity to the human protein dipeptidyl peptidase IV (DPPIV). AprA is a chemorepellent for Dictyostelium cells, and DPPIV is a chemorepellent for neutrophils. This led us to investigate if AprA and DPPIV have additional functional similarities. We find that like AprA, DPPIV is a chemorepellent for, and inhibits the proliferation of, D. discoideum cells, and that AprA binds some DPPIV binding partners such as fibronectin. Conversely, rAprA has DPPIV-like protease activity. These results indicate a functional similarity between two eukaryotic chemorepellent proteins with very little sequence similarity, and emphasize the usefulness of using a predicted protein structure to search a protein structure database, in addition to searching for proteins with similar sequences.
Herlihy SE, Tang Y, Phillips JE, Gomer RH (2017) Functional similarities between the dictyostelium protein AprA and the human protein dipeptidyl-peptidase IV Protein Science26: 578-585
Herlihy SE, Tang Y, Phillips JE, Gomer RH (2017) Protein Science26: 578-585