leucine zipper

A periodic repetition of Leu at every 7th position over a distance covering 8 alpha-helical turns. The Leu side chains extending from one alpha-helix interact with those from a similar alpha-helix of a 2nd polypeptide, facilitating dimerization of the 2 polypeptides. The resultant structure formed by dimerization of these two regions is a coiled coil. The leucine zipper pattern is present in many gene regulatory proteins.

General

binding site heptad repeat

Properties

FOR-BINDING-VIA: leucine zipper

References

prosite :accession PS00029