Masato Hirata (1), Takashi Kanematsu (1), Hiroshi Takeuchi (1) and Hitoshi
Yagisawa (2)
(1) Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Dentistry, Kyushu University,
Fukuoka 812-8582, Japan
(2) Department of Life Science, Faculty of Science, Himeji Institute of
Technology, Hyogo 678-1201, Japan
Abstract: Many of the proteins that participate in cell signalling
contain structural modules involved in regulatory interactions between components
of signal transduction cascades. One of such modules is the pleckstrin homology
(PH) domain, a region of approximately 120 amino acids that can form an
electrostatically polarized tertiary structure. Several molecules such as
inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate/phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate, the
betagamma-subunits of heterotrimeric G proteins and protein kinase C have
been proposed as common ligands for the PH domain. Through these potential
interactions, the PH domain has been proposed to play a role in membrane
recruitment of proteins containing the PH domain, thus targeting them to
appropriate cellular compartment or enabling them to interact with other
components of the signal transduction pathway. In this review, we mainly
focus on membrane targeting through the binding to inositol phosphates/phosphoinositides.
Keywords: Pleckstrin homology domain, Inositol phosphate, Phosphoinositide,
Signal transduction