The topic of the February Biochem CUME exam (2/17/03) is

The structure and function of PDZ domains

It will focus on this recent paper from last month's issue of Journal of Biological Chemistry:

Birrane et al., "Novel mode of ligand recognition by the Erbin PDZ domain", JBC 278:1399-1402

In biochemistry and molecular biology these days, “protein-protein interaction domains” are all the rage. Peruse any journal and you will see new genes cloned and predicted proteins sequences schematized as lines with boxes marked with mysterious labels like “SH-3 domain” or “EFG domain”. Most of these domains show similarity with domains in other proteins, but nobody knew what they looked like or how they operated. The Human Genome project has only made matters worse. Fortunately, the X-ray crystallographers and NMR spectroscopists have been busy as well, and they are gradually getting structures of these domains. The paper above is a very recent example of this kind of work. You may also want to check out a recent review of PDZ domains:

Hung and Sheng. (2002). “PDZ domains: Structural modules for protein complex assembly,” JBC 277:5699-5702.

Both of these papers are available from my website.

-Kevin Redding