Neuroglobin and Cytoglobin Fresh Blood for the Vertebrate Globin Family
EMBO reports Neuroglobin and cytoglobin Fresh blood for the vertebrate globin family Alessandra Pesce, Martino Bolognesi+, Alessio Bocedi1, Paolo Ascenzi1, Sylvia Dewilde2, Luc Moens2, Thomas Hankeln3 & Thorsten Burmester4 Department of Physics–INFM and Center for Excellence in Biomedical Research, University of Genova, Via Dodecaneso 33, I-16146 Genova, 1Department of Biology, University ‘Roma Tre’, Viale Guglielmo Marconi 446, I-00146 Roma, Italy, 2Department of Biochemistry, University of Antwerp, Universiteitsplein 1, B-2610 Antwerp, Belgium, 3Institute of Molecular Genetics, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Becherweg 32, D-55099 Mainz and 4Institute of Zoology, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Müllerweg 6, D-55099 Mainz, Germany Received August 7, 2002; revised October 8, 2002; accepted October 18, 2002 Neuroglobin and cytoglobin are two recently discovered (Wittenberg, 1970, 1992; Antonini and Brunori, 1971; Perutz, members of the vertebrate globin family. Both are intracellular 1979, 1990; Dickerson and Geis, 1983; Bunn and Forget, 1986; proteins endowed with hexacoordinated heme-Fe atoms, in Brunori, 1999; Weber and Vinogradov, 2001; Merx et al., 2002), their ferrous and ferric forms, and display O2 affinities comparable although they can also carry out enzymatic functions (Minning with that of myoglobin. Neuroglobin, which is predominantly et al., 1999; Ascenzi et al., 2001). expressed in nerve cells, is thought to protect neurons from Four types of globin, differing in structure, tissue distribution hypoxic–ischemic injury. It is of ancient evolutionary origin, and likely in function, have been discovered in man and other and is homologous to nerve globins of invertebrates. vertebrates: hemoglobin, myoglobin, neuroglobin and cyto- Cytoglobin is expressed in many different tissues, although at globin.
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