Rop (also known as repressor of primer, or as RNA one modulator (ROM)) is a small dimeric protein responsible for keeping the copy number of
ColE1
ColE1 is a plasmid found in bacteria. Its name derives from the fact that it carries a gene for colicin E1 (the ''cea'' gene). It also codes for immunity from this product with the ''imm'' gene. In addition, the plasmid has a series of mobility ...
family and related bacterial
plasmids
A plasmid is a small, extrachromosomal DNA molecule within a cell that is physically separated from chromosomal DNA and can replicate independently. They are most commonly found as small circular, double-stranded DNA molecules in bacteria; how ...
low in ''
E. coli'' by increasing the speed of pairing between the preprimer RNA, RNA II, and its
antisense RNA, RNA I.
Structurally, Rop is a homodimeric
four-helix bundle A helix bundle is a small protein fold composed of several alpha helices that are usually nearly parallel or antiparallel to each other.
Three-helix bundles
Three-helix bundles are among the smallest and fastest known cooperatively folding struct ...
protein formed by the antiparallel interaction of two
helix-turn-helix
Helix-turn-helix is a DNA-binding protein (DBP). The helix-turn-helix (HTH) is a major structural motif capable of binding DNA. Each monomer incorporates two α helices, joined by a short strand of amino acids, that bind to the major groove of D ...
monomers. The Rop protein's structure has been solved to high resolution.
Due to its small size and known structure, Rop has been used in
protein design
Protein design is the rational design of new protein molecules to design novel activity, behavior, or purpose, and to advance basic understanding of protein function. Proteins can be designed from scratch (''de novo'' design) or by making calcul ...
work to rearrange its helical topology and reengineer its loop regions.
In general, the
four-helix bundle A helix bundle is a small protein fold composed of several alpha helices that are usually nearly parallel or antiparallel to each other.
Three-helix bundles
Three-helix bundles are among the smallest and fastest known cooperatively folding struct ...
has been extensively used in de novo protein design work as a simple model to understand the relationship between amino acid sequence and structure.
External links
Rop proteinfrom Proteopedia
References
{{protein-stub
Proteins