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Updated: Aug 15, 2026

Spatio-Temporal Manipulation of Small GTPase Activity at Subcellular Level and on Timescale of Seconds in Living Cells
Published on: March 9, 2012
Characterization of a 78-residue fragment of c-Raf-1 that comprises a minimal binding domain for the interaction with
J E Scheffler1, D S Waugh, E Bekesi
1Department of Oncology, Roche Research Center, Hoffmann-La Roche Inc., Nutley, New Jersey 07110.
Abstract:
Four overlapping peptide fragments of human c-Raf-1 (residues 55-132, 55-117, 77-132, and 77-117) were expressed in Escherichia coli as carboxyl-terminal extensions of maltose binding protein (MBP). The MBP-Raf fusions were purified by affinity chromatography on amylose resin and tested for binding to Ras.GTP indirectly by measuring their ability to inhibit the stimulation of Ras GTPase activity by GTPase activating protein (GAP120) in vitro. MBP-Raf(55-132) was a potent inhibitor in this assay (50% inhibition at 100 nM concentration), but the other fusion proteins had no measurable effect. The fusion partners were cleaved with Factor Xa protease and separated by gel filtration. The 8960-dalton Raf(55-132) fragment retained full activity as a competitive inhibitor of GAP120. It also blocked Ras-stimulated germinal vesicle breakdown in frog oocytes. Raf(55-132) was further characterized by circular dichroism and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The results indicate that this fragment of c-Raf-1 adopts a highly structured, monomeric conformation in solution.
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