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Molecular and Cellular Biology, November 1999, p. 7782-7791, Vol. 19, No. 11
Charité,
Received 3 March 1999/Returned for modification 15 April
1999/Accepted 3 August 1999
Importin
0270-7306/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Evidence for Distinct Substrate Specificities of
Importin
Family Members in Nuclear Protein Import
plays a pivotal role in the classical nuclear protein
import pathway. Importin
shuttles between nucleus and cytoplasm, binds nuclear localization signal-bearing proteins, and functions as an
adapter to access the importin
-dependent import pathway. In
contrast to what is found for importin
, several isoforms of
importin
, which can be grouped into three subfamilies, exist in
higher eucaryotes. We describe here a novel member of the human family,
importin
7. To analyze specific functions of the distinct importin
proteins, we recombinantly expressed and purified five human
importin
's along with importin
from Xenopus and
Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Binding affinity studies showed
that all importin
proteins from humans or Xenopus bind
their import receptor (importin
) and their export receptor (CAS)
with only marginal differences. Using an in vitro import assay based on
permeabilized HeLa cells, we compared the import substrate
specificities of the various importin
proteins. When the substrates
were tested singly, only the import of RCC1 showed a strong preference
for one family member, importin
3, whereas most of the other
substrates were imported by all importin
proteins with similar
efficiencies. However, strikingly different substrate preferences of
the various importin
proteins were revealed when two substrates
were offered simultaneously.
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address:
Universität Göttingen, Zentrum Biochemie und Molekulare
Zellbiologie, Abt. Biochemie II, Goßlerstr. 12d, 37073 Göttingen, Germany. Phone: 49 551 395989. Fax: 49 551 395958. E-mail: ennohart{at}mdc.berlin.de.
Molecular and Cellular Biology, November 1999, p. 7782-7791, Vol. 19, No. 11
0270-7306/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
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