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* Bowman-Birk serine protease inhibitors family signature *
***********************************************************

The Bowman-Birk inhibitor family [1] is one of the numerous families of serine
proteinase inhibitors. As it can be seen in the schematic representation, they
have a  duplicated  structure  and  generally  possess two distinct inhibitory
sites:

            +------------------------------------------------+
            |      +-----+       +-------+    +-----+        |
            |      |     |       |       |    |     |        |
          xxCCxxCxxCxx#xxCxxCxxxxCxxxCxxxCxxxxCxx#xxCxxCxxCxxCxx
             |  |           |********|****             |  |
             |  |           |        |                 |  |
             +--|-----------+        +-----------------+  |
                +-----------------------------------------+

            <-----------------70 residues-------------------->

'C': conserved cysteine involved in a disulfide bond.
'#': active site residue.
'*': position of the pattern.

These inhibitors are found in the seeds of all leguminous plants as well as in
cereal  grains.  In cereals  they   exist in  two   forms,  one of which  is a
duplication of the basic structure shown above [2].   The pattern we developed
to pick up sequences belonging to this family  of inhibitors is in the central
part of the domain and includes four cysteines.

-Consensus pattern: C-x(5,6)-[DENQKRHSTA]-C-[PASTDH]-[PASTDK]-[ASTDV]-C-
                    [NDKS]-[DEKRHSTA]-C
                    [The four C's are involved in disulfide bonds]
-Sequences known to belong to this class detected by the pattern: ALL.
-Other sequence(s) detected in SWISS-PROT: NONE.

-Note: this pattern can be found twice in some duplicated cereal inhibitors.

-Last update: June 1994 / Pattern and text revised.

[ 1] Laskowski M., Kato I.
     Annu. Rev. Biochem. 49:593-626(1980).
[ 2] Tashiro M., Hashino K., Shiozaki M., Ibuki F., Maki Z.
     J. Biochem. 102:297-306(1987).