I’ve been poking around the PDB and didn’t find anything I was immediately attracted to, so I googled “interesting protein names” and found a really funny site about proteins found in Drosophila melanogaster, the fruit fly. Apparently fruit flies are so well known structure-wise that scientists thought it would be clever to name their proteins corresponding to the mutations they cause when missing or imperfect. Here’s the link: http://tinman.nikunnakki.info/?q=fruitfly. I’m thinking about doing one of these if I can find a representation of what the protein looks like somewhere.
To complete the theme of my post 🙂
Lots of Drosophila structures in the PDB! Here’s a selection of mutant names and the associated structure:
Spire — PDB 3MMV ( http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/explore/explore.do?structureId=3MMV )
Tudor — PDB 3NTK ( http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/explore/explore.do?structureId=3NTK )
Aristaless and Clawless — PDB 3A01 ( http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/explore/explore.do?structureId=3A01 )
Pumilio — PDB 3H3D ( http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/explore/explore.do?structureId=3H3D )
Spätzle — PDB 3E07 ( http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/explore/explore.do?structureId=3E07 )
Argos — PDB 3CA7 ( http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/explore/explore.do?structureId=3CA7 )
Argos bound to Spitz — PDB 3C9A ( http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/explore/explore.do?structureId=3C9A )
Engrailed — PDB 2JWT ( http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/explore/explore.do?structureId=2JWT )
LUSH (in complex with alcohol) — PDB 3B7A ( http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/explore/explore.do?structureId=3B7A )