FIGURE 2. The ADAM23 protein sequence NP_003803.1 was used in a BLASTP search of the Ensembl confirmed peptides produced from the 5 Sep 2000 version of the working draft sequence.

As of October 2000, the best match was to the peptide ENSP00000025626 derived from chromosome 2, the predicted peptide for ADAM23. The second match was to peptide ENSP00000072108, derived from chromosome 20 and falling within GenBank Acc. No. AC055771.2. We used this predicted peptide to search a database of Pfam²⁴ and SMART²⁵ protein domains that are aligned with protein structures. This Conserved Domain Database (CDD) search at NCBI resulted in hits to reprolysin and disintegrin domains. a, Pfam family 01421, Reprolysin, has a structure associated with it: the zinc-dependent metalloprotease Atrolysin C (PDB: 1ATL). b, The query ENSP00000072108 aligns with the 1ATL protein sequence and eight other ADAMs from the Pfam Reprolysin entry. In the structure and alignment, red indicates conserved residues; grey indicates non-aligned sequences. The three histidines of the metalloprotease active site, which complex with the zinc ion, are highlighted in yellow. The structure and alignment were created using the structure viewing program Cn3D.