Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!uunet!ig!daemon
From: BAIROCH@CGECMU51.BITNET
Newsgroups: bionet.molbio.proteins
Subject: Re: Classification scheme for proteins.
Message-ID: <6220@ig.ig.com>
Date: 9 May 88 14:27:30 GMT
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From: <BAIROCH%CGECMU51.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>

<From: seavey@portia.prc.unisys.com (Beverly Seavey)
<Subject: classification scheme for proteins
<Date: 21 Apr 88 20:20:43 GMT
<
<Is there a classification scheme, similiar to the Enzyme Commision
<convention, for proteins that do not form or break covalent bonds?
<I'm thinking of histones and repressors in particular.
------------------------------------------------------------------

To my knowledge no. There are more or less official classification
schemes for specific group or families of proteins but no global
scheme similar to that of enzymes.

For histones, apart from the classification into the H1, H2A, H2B, H3 and
H4 families there seems to be no real consistent sub-classification for the
different forms of H1, H2A and H2B that exist in some species. H3 and H4 do
not need any sub-classification as there is only one sequence by specy and
the sequence of these two histones are very conserved in all eukayrotes.

For repressors in general I have not seen anything, but for related protein
such as the Polymerase Sigma factors, there seems to a consensus in naming
then now with "sigma nn" names where nn is a number printed in superscript.
For example E.coli Hptr has been renamed Sigma-32 and NtrA have been renamed
Sigma-54 (for a recent paper listing Sigma factors see J. Bacteriol. 170:1568-
1574(1988).

Amos