Methionine



Standard codons for M : ATG

Substitution preferences:
All protein types:
Favoured Leu ( 2) Ile ( 1) Val ( 1)
Neutral Gln ( 0) Phe ( 0)
Disfavoured Ala (-1) Ser (-1) Cys (-1) Lys (-1) Thr (-1) Arg (-1) Trp (-1) Tyr (-1)
Asn (-2) Pro (-2) Glu (-2) His (-2) Asp (-3) Gly (-3)

Intracellular proteins:
Favoured Leu ( 2) Ile ( 1) Phe ( 1)
Neutral Ala ( 0) Cys ( 0) Arg ( 0) Gln ( 0) Lys ( 0) Thr ( 0) Val ( 0) Trp ( 0)
Tyr ( 0)
Disfavoured Glu (-1) His (-1) Asn (-1) Pro (-1) Ser (-1) Gly (-2) Asp (-2)

Extracellular proteins:
Favoured Leu ( 1)
Neutral Ala ( 0) Val ( 0) Thr ( 0) Arg ( 0) Glu ( 0) Phe ( 0) Gln ( 0) Ile ( 0)
Disfavoured His (-1) Lys (-1) Asn (-1) Pro (-1) Ser (-1) Trp (-1) Tyr (-1) Gly (-2)
Asp (-2) Cys (-5)

Membrane proteins:
Favoured Ile ( 1) Val ( 1) Leu ( 1)
Neutral Arg ( 0) Phe ( 0) Thr ( 0)
Disfavoured Lys (-1) Ala (-1) Cys (-1) Asn (-2) Ser (-2) Gln (-2) Trp (-2) His (-3)
Tyr (-3) Asp (-3) Pro (-3) Glu (-3) Gly (-3)


Substitutions: As Methionine is a hydrophobic amino acid, and can nearly be classed with other aliphatic amino acids. It prefers substitution with other hydrophobic amino acids.

Role in structure: Being hydrophobic, Methionine prefers to be buried in protein hydrophobic cores.

Role in function: The Methionine side chain is fairly non-reactive, and is thus rarely directly involved in protein function. Like other hydrophobic amino acids, it can play a role in binding/recognition of hydrophobic ligands such as lipids.

Unlike the proper aliphatic amino acids, Methionine contains a sulphur atom, that can be involved in binding to atoms such as metals. However, whereas the sulphur atom in Cysteine is connected to a hydrogen atom, making it quite reactive, Methionines sulphur is connected to a methyl group. This means that the roles that Methionine can play in protein function are much more limited.


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Please cite: M.J. Betts, R.B. Russell. Amino acid properties and consequences of subsitutions.
In Bioinformatics for Geneticists, M.R. Barnes, I.C. Gray eds, Wiley, 2003.
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