Modular Protein Domains

INTRODUCTION
An overview of protein to protein interactions and protein modules
SH2 domain as a paradigm of protein modules
PROTEIN BINDING DOMAINS THAT INTERACT WITH PROLINE LIGANDS
SH3 domain
WW domain
EVH1 domain
GYF domain
PROTEIN BINDING DOMAINS AND THEIR REGULATION BY PHOSPHORYLATION
PTB domain
FHA domains
14-3-3 proteins and phospho-serine/theronine binding modules
Protein kinase domains as important catalytic domains functionally linked to protein binding domains
PROTEIN DOMAINS REGULATING CHROMATIN FUNCTION
SET domains
Bromo domain
Chromo & Shadow-Chromo domains
PROTEIN DOMAINS RECOGNIZING SHORT PEPTIDE CORES IN THEIR LIGANDS
PDZ domain
EH domain
EXAMPLES OF FUNCTIONAL DIVERSITY AMONG PROTEIN DOMAINS: UBIQUITIN AND ACTIN BINDING DOMAINS
Ubiquitin-Binding Domains
CH domain
PHOSPHO-INOSITIDE BINDING PROTEIN DOMAINS
PH domain
VHS and ENTH domains
PX domain
DISSECTING DOMAINS AND LIGANDS WITH PEPTIDE CHEMISTRY AND COMPUTERS
Peptide and protein repertoires for global analysis of modules
Computational analysis of modular protein domains
Nomenclatures for protein modules and their cognate motifs
EPILOGUE: Future perspectives

"... the book is well written and provides clear, concise and informative reviews on some of the most common domains involved in protein-peptide interactions."

Nature Cell Biology, July 2005

Gianni Cesareni is a Full Professor of Genetics at the University of Rome Tor Vergata (Italy). After obtaining a degree in physics at the University of Rome La Sapienza he spent three years in Cambridge in the laboratory of Sidney Brenner. He then moved to the EMBL in Heidelberg where he led a group working on the mechanisms controlling plasmid DNA replication. Since 1989 he teaches and works in Rome. He is interested in the interplay between specificity and promiscuity in the protein interaction network mediated by protein recognition modules.

Mario Gimona is laboratory head at the Consorzio Mario Negri Sud in Santa Maria Imbaro (Italy) and reader for molecular cell biology at the University of Salzburg (Austria). He was born in Salzburg where he also received his degrees in genetics and biochemistry, after completing his Ph.D. work in the lab of Vic Small at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Following his post-doctoral time at the CSHL, New York (USA) with David Helfman he set up his own laboratory in Salzburg at the OeAW in 1996. His research interests revolve around the linguistic variation of functional protein modules and their role in the regulation of the actin cytoskeleton.

Marius Sudol has been an Associate Professor at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York since 1995. He was instrumental in the delineation and characterization of one of the smallest protein modules, the WW domain. His work also implicated the WW domain in signaling pathways underlying several human diseases including Alzheimer's disease, hypertension and cancer. He earned a Ph.D. at The Rockefeller University in New York in 1983 and stayed at his Alma Mater as a postdoctoral fellow and faculty member until his move to Mount Sinai. Dr.Sudol has published 95 research articles and is credited as inventor on two biotechnology patents.

Michael B. Yaffe is Associate Professor of Biology at the Center for Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He earned his MD and PhD degrees at Case Western Reserve University, and did residency training in general surgery, trauma and critical care medicine at Harvard Medical School. He was a post-doctoral fellow in Cell Biology at Harvard under Lewis C. Cantley, where he remained as junior faculty until moving to MIT in 2000. He is interested in signal transduction, protein phosphorylation, and phosphopeptide-binding domains, with a focus on cell cycle control, DNA damage responses, and inflammation.

All editors are members of the "Protein Module Consortium", a world-wide organization to support researchers interested in protein modules.

G. Cesareni, Tor Vergata University, Rome, Italy; M. Gimona, The Protein Modules Consortium, Anif, Austria; M. Sudol, Mt. Sinai Medical Center, New York, NY; M. Yaffe, MIT, Cambridge, MA