Affiliations 

  • 1 Institute of Systems Biology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
  • 2 Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
  • 3 Centre for Chemical Biology, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Bayan Lepas, Penang, Malaysia
  • 4 Diamond Light Source, Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Didcot, England, United Kingdom
  • 5 Division of Human Biology, School of Medicine, International Medical University, Bukit Jalil, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  • 6 Department of Biochemistry, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore
PeerJ, 2018;6:e5377.
PMID: 30280012 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.5377

Abstract

Proteins of the DUF866 superfamily are exclusively found in eukaryotic cells. A member of the DUF866 superfamily, C1ORF123, is a human protein found in the open reading frame 123 of chromosome 1. The physiological role of C1ORF123 is yet to be determined. The only available protein structure of the DUF866 family shares just 26% sequence similarity and does not contain a zinc binding motif. Here, we present the crystal structure of the recombinant human C1ORF123 protein (rC1ORF123). The structure has a 2-fold internal symmetry dividing the monomeric protein into two mirrored halves that comprise of distinct electrostatic potential. The N-terminal half of rC1ORF123 includes a zinc-binding domain interacting with a zinc ion near to a potential ligand binding cavity. Functional studies of human C1ORF123 and its homologue in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe (SpEss1) point to a role of DUF866 protein in mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.