Molecular Evolution of Phosphoprotein Phosphatases in Drosophila

Molecular Evolution of Phosphoprotein Phosphatases in Drosophila

Phosphoprotein phosphatases (PPP), these ancient and important regulatory enzymes are present in all eukaryotic organisms. Based on the genome sequences of 12 Drosophila species we traced the evolution of the PPP catalytic subunits and noted a substantial expansion of the gene family. We concluded that the 18-22 PPP genes of Drosophilidae were generated from a core set of 8 indispensable phosph...

Role of serine-threonine phosphoprotein phosphatases in smooth muscle contractility.

The degree of phosphorylation of myosin light chain 20 (MLC20) is a major determinant of force generation in smooth muscle. Myosin phosphatases (MPs) contain protein phosphatase (PP) 1 as catalytic subunits and are the major enzymes that dephosphorylate MLC20. MP regulatory targeting subunit 1 (MYPT1), the main regulatory subunit of MP in all smooth muscles, is a key convergence point of contra...

Effect of ethanol treatment on high molecular weight phosphoprotein phosphatases of rat liver.

When the crude phosphoprotein phosphatase fraction of rat liver cytosol was treated with 80% aqueous ethanol at room temperature, the activity with phosphorylase alpha as substrate was increased by 110%, but those with glycogen synthase D and phosphohistone were decreased by 53 and 34%, respectively. Chromatography of the ethanol-treated fraction on DE-52 revealed that while phosphoprotein phos...

Molecular evolution of type 1 serine/threonine protein phosphatases.

Type 1 serine/threonine protein phosphatases (PP1s) play key roles in many cellular processes. To understand the evolutionary relationships among PP1s from various kingdoms and to provide a valid basis to evaluate the structure-function relationships of these phosphatases, 44 PP1 sequences were aligned, revealing a high sequence similarity among PP1 homologs. About one-third of the total amino ...

Connexins as Substrates for Protein Kinases and Phosphoprotein Phosphatases