Mornon, JP, Halaby, D, Malfois, M, P Durand, Callebaut, I and Tardieu, A (1998), "alpha-Crystallin C-terminal domain: on the track of an Ig fold.", Int J Biol Macromol, 22, 3-4: 219-27.
Abstract: New results obtained from a two-dimensional sequence
analysis of the small heat shock protein (shsp) family are described. It
is confirmed that the conserved C-terminal alpha-crystallin domain
is essentially made of beta-strands, most probably two groups of
beta-strands separated by a large loop. A direct correspondence between the
putative beta-strands that have been identified in shsps and the seven
beta-strands of a classical immunoglobulin-like fold is proposed. The
hypothesis that the shsp family could belong to the immunoglobulin
superfamily (IgSF) is consistent with the ubiquitous distribution and the
multifunctional properties of the crystallins that are now emerging.
