ELECTROTACTINS - A CLASS OF ADHESION PROTEINS WITH CONSERVED ELECTROSTATIC AND STRUCTURAL MOTIFS

The concept of an electrostatic motif on the surface of biological mac romolecules as a definite topographical pattern of electrostatic poten tials in three-dimensional space, provides a powerful tool for identif ication of functionally important regions on the surface of structural ly related macromolecules, Using this approach, we identify a function al region common to cholinesterases (ChEs) and to a set of neural cell -adhesion proteins that have been suggested to be structurally related to cholinesterases due to their high sequence similarity, but lacking the key catalytically active serine, Quantitative analysis of the ele ctrostatic surface potential in the area surrounding the entrance to t he active site of acetylcholinesterase, and in the analogous zone for the ChE-like domain of the adhesion proteins reveals very good correla tion. These findings, examined in the context of previous evidence inv olving this same region in a possible cell-recognition function for Ch Es, leads us to define a class of adhesion proteins which we have name d 'electrotactins'.