preview

Is Tachylectin 5a A Protein Found During The Immune System Of The Japanese Horseshoe Crab

Decent Essays

Tachylectin-5A is a protein found in the immune system of the Japanese horseshoe crab, Tachypleus tridentatus. Tachylectin-5A, which has a PBD reference number of 1JC9, is mainly found in the hemolymph plasma of horseshoe crabs (1). This protein was determined on June 8th, 2001 via x-ray diffraction (1). The X-ray diffraction results in an absorbance of 2.01 Å (2). It shows that the protein contains 269 residues, and the molecular weight ot is 380-400 kDa (2). Proteins similar to tachylectin-5A have been found in various organisms like slime molds, sponges, bony fish, and lancelets (3). Tachylectin-5A is structurally related to the fibrinogen γ fragment, which is found in mammals’ plasma; and it is similar to a protein in humans called ficolin, which is involved in host defense through nonself-recognition (4).
Tachylectin-5A is an ellipsoidal molecule that is an asymmetrical monomer, which is subdivided into three different domains that interact with each other (2). The primary structure of Tachylectin-5A constitutes 269 amino acid residues (1). The amino acid composition of this protein has a cis-peptide bone between Arg-218 and Cys-219 (3). It contains one protein modification called prryolidone carboxylic acid, which is the twenty-fourth amino acid in the sequence (1). And the secondary structure of the protein consists of 16% alpha helical and 24% beta sheets. There are 9 helices with 44 amino acid residues and 19 beta sheets with 66 residues involved in total (1). The

Get Access