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The sterol-sensing domain: multiple families, a unique role?
Patricia E Kuwabara1, Michel Labouesse
1The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SA, UK. pek@sanger.ac.uk
Trends in Genetics : TIG
|April 5, 2002
Abstract:
The "sterol-sensing domain" (SSD) is conserved across phyla and is present in several membrane proteins, such as Patched (a Hedgehog receptor) and NPC-1 (the protein defective in Niemann-Pick type C1 disease). The role of the SSD is perhaps best understood from the standpoint of its involvement in cholesterol homeostasis. This article discusses how the SSD appears to function as a regulatory domain involved in linking vesicle trafficking and protein localization with such varied processes as cholesterol homeostasis, cell signalling and cytokinesis.