Calmodulin

The sequence for Calmodulin is shown below. Calmodulin, which mediates many calcium-driven metabolic reactions, is found in all eukaryotes and its sequence is remarkably conserved. For animals, plants, fungi, and protozoans, the recorded protein sequences vary by only a few dozen residues, and the human sequence is precisely duplicated in several other species, including echinoderms, fish, frogs, birds, and other mammals. Moreover the calmodulin sequence is itself a variant of the calcium-binding protein muscle troponin C.

In calmodulin, each of the calcium-binding sites is flanked by or partly embedded in two long helices, with the Ca++ ion held between an aspartate (D) and glutamate (E) residue 12 units apart. Using the hydrophobicity scale, the more hydrophobic residues of each helix generate a startling Latin dance tune, with ornamentation provided by the negatively charged D/E and other more polar residues. Click to hear calmodulin alpha themes. Although the helical sequences of each reiteration of the theme are not as strongly similar as they are in spidroin, the shaping of the phrases in the music is, as the sequence shifts from hydrophobic to hydrophilic residues.

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