Abstract

COMPUTATIONAL PREDICTION OF PROTEIN INTERACTIONS IN BCL-2 PROTEIN AND THEIR ROLE IN APOPTOSIS

Rashmi Rameshwari*, Dr. Shilpa S. Chapadgaonkar and Dr. T. V. Prasad

Abstract

Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) participate in a diverse range of biological processes inside a cell such as cell to cell communication, developmental process and most of the major metabolic processes. These interactions play a vital role in predicting the functions of a target protein and drug ability of molecules. Apoptosis is considered as a major component of biological processes, it involves number of proteins that are actively participating and regulating the survival of cells. In this work protein functional region among mammals along with their interactions were studied in mitochondrial mediated apoptosis. There are many key proteins which actively participate in mitochondrial apoptosis process. Among these proteins, Bcl-2 family of proteins has great significance in apoptosis process. It possesses different classes of proteins which promote cell survival and cell death named as Antiapoptotic proteins and Pro-apoptotic proteins respectively Along with these BH3 proteins acts as a mediator if it interacts with pro-apoptotic proteins. Using Bioinformatics tools, Bcl- 2 family proteins were investigated to know homology with other mammals. Further observation was made on evolutionary relationship among closely related mammalian species. PPIs was studied in detail and found that they have great potential to be used in therapeutic purposes and research.

Keywords: Protein-protein interactions (PPIs), Apoptosis, Anti-apoptotic proteins, Proapoptotic proteins, BH3 proteins.