Title: Is HNF4A a candidate to study zinc finger protein slug?

Authors: Prashanth Suravajhala; Tiratha Raj Singh

Addresses: Bioclues Organization, Kukatpally, Hyderabad 500072, Telangana, India ' Bioclues Organization, Kukatpally, Hyderabad 500072, Telangana, India; Department of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Jaypee University of Information Technology, Waknaghat, Solan, HP, India

Abstract: Protein-Protein Interactions (PPI) play a crucial role in deciphering function besides identifying candidates. While the experimental analysis is often time consuming involving number of experiments like pulldown assays, they are not necessarily limiting the ability to detect novel protein interactors. In this work, we discuss the role and putative interactors of SNAI2, a slug protein which is involved in the development of cancer progression. The protein interactions have been deciphered by domain pair exclusion method which gives confidence to already precluded interaction pairs. Additionally, conservation patterns of the slug protein have also been analysed by estimating site-specific evolutionary rates at structural level. Based upon the computational analysis, we consider HNF4A could be a putative candidate to study zinc finger protein slug. We believe, this candidate study augmented with structural conservation will definitely provide novel insights into the design and discovery of new interactions for zinc finger class of proteins besides providing possible clues for discovery of various cancer types associated with this class of proteins.

Keywords: zinc finger protein; SNAI2; slug proteins; protein-protein interactions; PPIs; site-specific rates; evolutionary conservation; HNF4A; bioinformatics; cancer progression; cancer types.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBRA.2015.070141

International Journal of Bioinformatics Research and Applications, 2015 Vol.11 No.4, pp.366 - 373

Received: 23 Aug 2014
Accepted: 25 Mar 2015

Published online: 27 Jun 2015 *

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