| In this essay we attempt to reconsider the concept of the “Leucine Zipper” (LZ) protein oligomerization motif. Reasoning on the wealth of existing data, we suggest that despite of the structural similarity with highly stable extended “Coiled Coil” motifs, on the functional level short and moderately stable “Leucine Zippers” might stand out as a distinct group. Namely, this family of oligomerization motifs facilitates combinatorial protein-protein recognition in the course of signal transduction events, thus going beyond the structural role of the extended “Coiled Coils”. Summarizing the existing knowledge on stability, specificity and folding of Leucine Zippers we... |
