Cholesterol Modification of Hedgehog Signaling Proteins in Animal Development

摘要: Hedgehog (Hh) proteins comprise a family of secreted signaling molecules essential for patterning variety structures in animal embryogenesis. During biosynthesis, Hh undergoes an autocleavage reaction, mediated by its carboxyl-terminal domain, that produces lipid-modified amino-terminal fragment responsible all known activity. Here it is reported cholesterol the lipophilic moiety covalently attached to domain during autoprocessing and acts as intramolecular transferase. This use modify embryonic may account some effects perturbed biosynthesis on development.