Z-DNA and Z-RNA are functionally important left-handed structures of nucleic acids, which play a significant role in several molecular and biological processes including DNA replication, gene expression regulation and viral nucleic acid sensing. Most proteins that have been proven to interact with Z-DNA/Z-RNA contain the so-called Zα domain, which is structurally well conserved. To date, only eight proteins with Zα domain have been described within a few organisms (including human, mouse, Danio rerio, Trypanosoma brucei and some viruses). Therefore, this paper aimed to search for new Z-DNA/Z-RNA binding proteins in the complete PDB structures database and from the AlphaFold2 protein models. A structure-based similarity search found 14 proteins with highly similar Zα domain structure in experimentally-defined proteins and 185 proteins with a putative Zα domain using the AlphaFold2 models. Structure-based alignment and molecular docking confirmed high functional conservation of amino acids involved in Z-DNA/Z-RNA, suggesting that Z-DNA/Z-RNA recognition may play an important role in a variety of cellular processes.
Journal article
2022-01-11T00:00:00+00:00
23
Z-DNA, Z-RNA, Zα domain, bioinformatics, protein binding, Amino Acid Sequence, Binding Sites, DNA, Z-Form, DNA-Binding Proteins, Models, Molecular, Molecular Docking Simulation, Molecular Dynamics Simulation, Nucleic Acid Conformation, Protein Binding, Protein Conformation, Protein Interaction Domains and Motifs, RNA, RNA-Binding Proteins, Structure-Activity Relationship