A bioinformatics study concerning structural and functional properties of human caveolin proteins

Abstract

We performed a bioinformatics study to predict and compare the structural and functional properties of human caveolins: caveolin-1, -2 and -3. The computed local physico-chemical properties, predictions of their secondary structure elements and interacting partners of caveolin-2 and -3 are compared to experimentally proved structural and functional properties of caveolin-1. These data combined with the sequences alignment of the three caveolins, allowed predicting and characterizing the functional domains of caveolin-2 and -3. The hydrophobic regions of these proteins are highly similar in sequences and physicochemical properties and it is in good agreement with their known membrane locations and functions. The most divergent in sequences and properties are the C-terminal regions of caveolins suggesting that they might be responsible for their distinct predicted interactions, with direct consequences on signalling processes.

Keywords

• secondary structure
• disordered regions
• functional domains