Voltage-Gated Sodium Channel Auxiliary Subunits
Disciplines
Bioinformatics | Computational Biology | Genomics
Abstract (300 words maximum)
Voltage-gated sodium channels with auxiliary subunits are able to induce electrical activity in excitable tissues. Auxiliary subunits aid with transporting and biogenesis of principal subunits. Auxiliary subunits also have shown that they can possibly be drug targets for painkillers. The purpose of this research is to use phylogenetic and functional data to draw a conclusion of the evolutionary origins for each of the three families of sodium auxiliary subunits: β1 and β3, β2 and β4, and temperature-induced paralytic E (TipE). Through BLAST, it was found that there are a total of 1715 homologues for β1/β3 subunits, 4911 homologues for β2/β4, and 970 homologues for TipE. CD-HIT was used to narrow down the homologues to sequences with 90% similarity, decreasing the homologues to 576 homologues for β1/β3 subunits, 1749 homologues for β2/β4, and 162 homologues for TipE. Phylogenetic trees, correlating to each subunit, were made using sequence alignments of homologues to determine evolutionary relationships. The beta subunits had a common feature where β1/β3 and β2/β4 showed that there was one transmembrane helix. TipE showed that there were two transmembrane helices. Cysteine residue was found from the partial alignment of β1/β3 subunits which could cause epilepsy syndrome if mutations occur.
Academic department under which the project should be listed
CSM - Molecular and Cellular Biology
Primary Investigator (PI) Name
Tsai-Tien Tseng
Voltage-Gated Sodium Channel Auxiliary Subunits
Voltage-gated sodium channels with auxiliary subunits are able to induce electrical activity in excitable tissues. Auxiliary subunits aid with transporting and biogenesis of principal subunits. Auxiliary subunits also have shown that they can possibly be drug targets for painkillers. The purpose of this research is to use phylogenetic and functional data to draw a conclusion of the evolutionary origins for each of the three families of sodium auxiliary subunits: β1 and β3, β2 and β4, and temperature-induced paralytic E (TipE). Through BLAST, it was found that there are a total of 1715 homologues for β1/β3 subunits, 4911 homologues for β2/β4, and 970 homologues for TipE. CD-HIT was used to narrow down the homologues to sequences with 90% similarity, decreasing the homologues to 576 homologues for β1/β3 subunits, 1749 homologues for β2/β4, and 162 homologues for TipE. Phylogenetic trees, correlating to each subunit, were made using sequence alignments of homologues to determine evolutionary relationships. The beta subunits had a common feature where β1/β3 and β2/β4 showed that there was one transmembrane helix. TipE showed that there were two transmembrane helices. Cysteine residue was found from the partial alignment of β1/β3 subunits which could cause epilepsy syndrome if mutations occur.