Proteins are known to be post-translationally modified. This thesis will discuss arginine methylation, one of the many post-translational modifications that occur within the cell. The enzymes that catalyze this post-translational modification are called arginine methyltransferases. The three main types of methylated arginines include monomethylated arginine (MMA), asymmetric dimethylated arginine (aDMA) and symmetric dimethylated arginines (sDMA). Type I arginine methyltransferases catalyze the formation of MMA and aDMA; Type II enzyme catalyze the formation of MMA and sDMA. Protein arginine methylation has been implicated in the regulation of many different cellular processes, including transcription, cellular localization, protein-protein interaction and signal transduction. / The purpose of this work was to further characterize arginine methylation by identifying new members of the arginine methyltransferase enzyme family in Drosophila melanogaster and to study the effects of protein arginine methylation on novel substrates. I identified and characterized nine homologues of arginine methyltransferases in Drosophila that were named DART1 to DART9, for drosophila arginine methyltransferases 1-9. All nine enzymes are expressed at various developmental stages. I discovered that a substrate of mammalian enzyme protein arginine methyltransferase 1 (PRMT1) can also be methylated by PRMT5. I also identified HIV-1 Tat protein as the first substrate of the novel enzyme PRMT6.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.85889 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Boulanger, Marie-Chloé |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Division of Experimental Medicine.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002261183, proquestno: AAINR21626, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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