An in silico approach to study eIF4E interactions

PAULUCCI EZEQUIEL; GUTIERREZ PABLO; LAYANA CARLA; FERRERO PAOLA; DIAMBRA LUIS; RIVERA POMAR ROLANDO

Tucumán, Argentina

Congreso; 45th annual meeting, SAIB; 2009

SAIB

An in silico approach to study eIF4E interactions. Paulucci E; Gutierrez P; Layana C; Ferrero P; Diambra L; Rivera Pomar R.Laboratorio de Genética y Genómica Funcional y Laboratorio de Biología de Sistemas, CREG-UNLP. An in silico approach to study eIIF4E interactions. eIF4E is a translation factor that interact with many posttranscriptional gene expression regulators. The structure of eIF4E as well as some interacting complexes is known in humans and mouse. eIF4E is the only translation factor present in P-bodies, where it interacts with the helicase rck/p54 in human cells. In Drosophila the product of the gene me31b is the ortholog of rck/p54. In order to study the interactions and predict a model for the interaction eIF4E-me31b we used a suite of structural bioinformatics tools.  Despite the lack of protein structural information in proteins database, homology models were build for these two proteins using information of ortholog proteins using the software MODELLER (http://salilab.org/modeller/). Several steps of energy minimization adjustment and loop refining were made.  Finally, we built an interaction representation by means of refining models and, global and constrain docking with AUTODOCK, a suite of automated docking tools (http://autodock.scripps.edu/). Our data collection provided the basis for rational design of mutants aimed to experimentally define interactions within RNP complexes in P-bodies.