CRYSTALS STRUCTURE OF THE MOUSE APOPTOSIS-INDUCING FACTOR AIF AND APPLICATIONS THEREOF

摘要

The invention relates to a polypeptide that modulates apoptosis or AIF redox activity comprising a variant or fragment of Apoptosis-Inducing Factor (AIF), a flavoprotein that can stimulate a caspase-independent cell-death pathway. This polypeptide may be at least identified, screened, designed or engineered used the data deposited in the Protein Data Bank under accession number 1GV4. Nucleic acids encoding polypeptides of the invention are also contemplated. Also disclosed are AIF variant proteins and methods for identifying, preparing or designing compounds that modulates AIF activities. Compounds identified by said methods are also contemplated. The invention also relates to computer-readable media and computerized methods for selecting or identifying AIF variants or compounds with AIF agonist or antagonist activity.