Acta Pharmacol Sin 2008 Mar; 29 (3): 285–295 Invited review Rho GTPases of the RhoBTB subfamily and tumorigenesis1 Jessica BERTHOLD2, Kristína SCHENKOVÁ2, Francisco RIVERO2,3,4 2Centers for Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany; 3The Hull York Medical School, University of Hull, Hull HU6 7RX, UK Key words Abstract Rho guanosine triphosphatase; RhoBTB; RhoBTB proteins constitute a subfamily of atypical members within the Rho fa- DBC2; cullin; neoplasm mily of small guanosine triphosphatases (GTPases). Their most salient feature 1This work was supported by grants from the is their domain architecture: a GTPase domain (in most cases, non-functional) Center for Molecular Medicine Cologne, the is followed by a proline-rich region, a tandem of 2 broad-complex, tramtrack, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and the bric à brac (BTB) domains, and a conserved C-terminal region. In humans, Köln Fortune Program of the Medical Faculty, University of Cologne. the RhoBTB subfamily consists of 3 isoforms: RhoBTB1, RhoBTB2, and RhoBTB3. Orthologs are present in several other eukaryotes, such as Drosophi- 4 Correspondence to Dr Francisco RIVERO. la and Dictyostelium, but have been lost in plants and fungi. Interest in RhoBTB Phn 49-221-478-6987. Fax 49-221-478-6979. arose when RHOBTB2 was identified as the gene homozygously deleted in E-mail
[email protected] breast cancer samples and was proposed as a candidate tumor suppressor gene, a property that has been extended to RHOBTB1. The functions of RhoBTB pro- Received 2007-11-17 Accepted 2007-12-16 teins have not been defined yet, but may be related to the roles of BTB domains in the recruitment of cullin3, a component of a family of ubiquitin ligases.