The Fanconi Anemia Gene Product FANCF Is a Flexible Adaptor Protein

• Published in: The Journal of biological chemistry 2004-09, Vol.279 (38), p.39421-39430
• Main Authors: Léveillé, France, Blom, Eric, Medhurst, Annette L., Bier, Patrick, Laghmani, El Houari, Johnson, Mark, Rooimans, Martin A., Sobeck, Alexandra, Waisfisz, Quinten, Arwert, Fré, Patel, K.J., Hoatlin, Maureen E., Joenje, Hans, de Winter, Johan P.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Amino Acid Sequence; Animals; Cell Nucleus - physiology; Fanconi Anemia Complementation Group F Protein; Humans; Molecular Sequence Data; Mutagenesis; Protein Binding; Protein Structure, Secondary; Protein Structure, Tertiary; RNA-Binding Proteins - chemistry; RNA-Binding Proteins - genetics; RNA-Binding Proteins - metabolism; Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; Structure-Activity Relationship; Xenopus
• ISSN: 0021-9258; 1083-351X
• DOI: 10.1074/jbc.M407034200

The Fanconi anemia (FA) protein FANCF is an essential component of a nuclear core complex that protects the genome against chromosomal instability, but the specific function of FANCF is still poorly understood. Based upon the homology between human and Xenopus laevis FANCF, we carried out an extensive mutagenesis study to examine which domains are functionally important and to gain more insight into the function of FANCF. In contrast to previous suggestions, we show that FANCF does not have a ROM-like function. We found that the C terminus of FANCF interacts directly with FANCG and allows the assembly of other FA proteins into a stable complex. The N terminus appears to stabilize the interaction with FANCA and FANCG and is essential for the binding of the FANCC/FANCE subcomplex. We identified several important amino acids in this N-terminal region but, surprisingly, many amino acid changes failed to affect the function of the FANCF protein. Our data demonstrate that FANCF acts as a flexible adaptor protein that plays a key role in the proper assembly of the FA core complex.