Structures of the rat proteasomal ATPases: determination of highly conserved structural motifs and rules for their spacing.

We have isolated rat cDNAs for all of the five known proteasomal ATPases. The protein sequences of rat TBP1, TBP7, MSS1, S4, and SUG1 predicted from the open reading frames consist of 439, 418, 433, 440, and 406 amino acid residues, respectively, and exhibit striking similarities to each human counterpart with only several amino acid substitutions. These five rat ATPases are also highly homologous with each other. The N-terminal region in rat TBP1, TBP7, and SUG1 contains a heptad repeat of hydrophobic amino acids reminiscent of a leucine zipper. Also, in the central region of each rat ATPase, we found four conserved motifs, Gx4GKT, DEID, SAT, and H/QRxGRx2R, that are characteristic of a large family of ATP-dependent RNA/DNA helicases. The spacing between individual motifs was strictly conserved in the rat ATPases. These findings suggest a common function of the rat proteasomal ATPases in ATP-dependent RNA/DNA unwinding.