Fig. 1. The C. elegans Rac gene family. Alignment of the C. elegans Rac-like proteins CED-10 (Genbank Accession, AAF33846), RAC-2 (CAB05247), RAC-3 (CAB05244) and MIG-2 (AAC47729) with human (Hs) Rac1 (NP008839). Gray shading indicates residues that are identical in at least three out of five sequences. The myristylation signal (myr) of MIG-2 and motifs conserved in all five molecules are underlined. The P-loop region interacts with phosphoryl groups of GDP and GTP, the switch regions change conformation upon GDP/GTP exchange, and the C-terminal membrane targeting signal typically results in prenylation (Bourne et al., 1991; Zhang and Casey 1996). The glycine 12 (G12) residue (G16 in MIG-2) that is altered to a valine in constitutively-active alleles of Rho-family GTPases including mig-2(rh17) is indicated by a V above the alignment. The G12 residue was altered to a valine in the ced-10(G12V) cDNA construct. A diagram illustrating the identity relationships among the molecules is shown below the alignment.
