Systematic Prediction of Scaffold Proteins Reveals New Design Principles in Scaffold-Mediated Signal Transduction

Jianfei Hu, Johnathan Neiswinger, Jin Zhang, Heng Zhu, Jiang Qian

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

9 Scopus citations

Abstract

Scaffold proteins play a crucial role in facilitating signal transduction in eukaryotes by bringing together multiple signaling components. In this study, we performed a systematic analysis of scaffold proteins in signal transduction by integrating protein-protein interaction and kinase-substrate relationship networks. We predicted 212 scaffold proteins that are involved in 605 distinct signaling pathways. The computational prediction was validated using a protein microarray-based approach. The predicted scaffold proteins showed several interesting characteristics, as we expected from the functionality of scaffold proteins. We found that the scaffold proteins are likely to interact with each other, which is consistent with previous finding that scaffold proteins tend to form homodimers and heterodimers. Interestingly, a single scaffold protein can be involved in multiple signaling pathways by interacting with other scaffold protein partners. Furthermore, we propose two possible regulatory mechanisms by which the activity of scaffold proteins is coordinated with their associated pathways through phosphorylation process.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article numbere1004508
JournalPLoS computational biology
Volume11
Issue number9
DOIs
StatePublished - 2015

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
  • Modeling and Simulation
  • Ecology
  • Molecular Biology
  • Genetics
  • Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience
  • Computational Theory and Mathematics

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