The RNP motif protein family

RNA-protein interactions play critical roles in a variety of important processes in the cell, such as mRNA splicing and translation. Many RNA binding proteins contain an approximately 80-aminoacid conserved sequence, the RNP motif, that has been shown in several cases to constitute the binding domain. As a class, RNP motif proteins bind many different RNAs with varying degrees of sequence specificity. A major area of current interest is the elucidation of the structure-function relationships in these proteins: the structure of the motif and the residues that are important for sequence-specific binding, the roles of the individual motifs in proteins with multiple RNP motifs, and the functions of other domains found in RNP motif proteins. Recent experiments have provided some insight into these issues and have paved the way for a more detailed understanding of this protein family.