background: fragile histidine triad protein (fhit), as a known tumor suppressor protein, has been proposed to play crucial role in inhibiting p53 degradation by mdm2. studies have confirmed fhit interaction with p53 or mdm2, although functional interacting domains of fhit with mdm2 and/or p53 are not completely defined. thus, through determining the significant structural interacting domains of...

Fhit protein is a tumor suppressor with reduced or no expression in many types of cancer. Fhit expression is more frequently lost in cancers of individuals with familial mutations causing deficiency in DNA repair genes such as BRCA1 and BRCA2 and MSH2. In vitro Fhit acts as a hydrolase that cleaves diadenosine triphosphate (Ap3A) to ADP and AMP. The Fhit-Ap3A enzyme-substrate complex appears to...

Histidine triad (HIT) proteins were until recently a superfamily of proteins that shared only sequence motifs. Crystal structures of nucleotide-bound forms of histidine triad nucleotide-binding protein (Hint) demonstrated that the conserved residues in HIT proteins are responsible for their distinctive, dimeric, 10-stranded half-barrel structures that form two identical purine nucleotide-bindin...

The histidine triad proteins (HITs) constitute a large and ubiquitous superfamily of nucleotide hydrolases. The human histidine triad nucleotide-binding proteins (hHints) are a distinct class of HITs noted for their acyl-AMP hydrolase and phosphoramidase activity. The first high-resolution crystal structures of hHint2 with and without bound AMP are described. The differences between hHint2 and ...