Novel calpain families and novel mechanisms for calpain regulation in Aplysia

摘要: Calpains are a family of intracellular proteases defined by conserved protease domain. In the marine mollusk Aplysia californica, calpains important for induction long-term synaptic plasticity and memory, at least in part cleaving protein kinase Cs (PKCs) into constitutively active kinases, termed Ms (PKMs). We identify 14 genes encoding using bioinformatics, including one member each four major calpain families which metazoan generally classified, as well additional truncated atypical calpains. Six classical containing penta-EF-hand (PEF) domain present Aplysia. Phylogenetic analysis determined that these six come from three separate families. One Aplysia, AplCCal1, has been implicated plasticity. splice cassettes an alternative transcriptional start site AplCCal1. characterize several possible isoforms AplCCal1 vitro, demonstrate can cleave PKCs PKMs calcium-dependent manner vitro. also find novel mechanism auto-inactivation through N-terminal cleavage is modulated its site.