Abstract for 'Title'

A variety of nuclear localisation signals (NLSs) are experimentally known; only one motif was available for database searches. We initially collected a set of 91 experimentally verified NLSs from the literature. Through iterated 'in silico mutagenesis' we then extended the set to 214 potential NLSs. This final set matched in 43% of all known nuclear proteins and in no known non-nuclear protein. We estimated >17% of all eukaryotic proteins may be imported into the nucleus. Finally, we found an overlap between NLS and DNA-binding region for 90% of the proteins for which both NLS and DNA-binding regions were known. Thus, evolution seemed to have used part of the existing DNA-binding mechanism when compartmentalising DNA-binding proteins into the nucleus. However, only 56 of our 214 NLS motifs overlapped with DNA-binding regions. These 56 NLSs enabled a de novo prediction of partial DNA-binding regions for about 800 proteins in human, fly, worm and yeast.

Key words: nuclear localisation signal (NLS); protein sequence analysis; genome analysis; predict cellular localization; predict DNA-binding regions; Drosophila melanogaster; Caenorhabditis elegans; Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

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