Intracellular Cleavage of the Cx43 C-Terminal Domain by Matrix-Metalloproteases: A Novel Contributor to Inflammation?

Figure 1

Predicted MMP cleavage sites of the Cx43 C-terminal domain. In silico analysis using PROSPER and SitePrediction reveals several potential cleavage sites of MMP-2 (green circles), MMP-7 (pink letters), and MMP-9 (blue circles) in the human Cx43 C-terminal domain. MMP target domains are 8 amino acids in length (P4-P3-P2-P1-P1′-P2′-P3′-P4′) with the actual MMP cleavage site (between P1 and P1′) indicated by the arrowhead. In addition, we include one MMP-7 target site published in [7] that is not predicted by in silico analysis using PROSPER or SitePredict (indicated by the asterisk). Inset depicts the full length topology of Cx43.