Fig. 3. Nowa protein from Hydra vulgaris. (A) Nowa domain organization. CTLD, C-type lectin-like domain (smart00034, E-value of 10^-17); SCP, homology to SCP domains (smart00198, E-value of 10^-3); SP, signal peptide. The putative cleavage site for an N-terminal propeptide after residues KR is indicated by an arrow. (B) Alignment of CTLDs of Nowa and vertebrate proteins. Sequences most similar to the Nowa CTLD were retrieved by a BLAST-search in SWISS-PROT (sp) and TrEMBL (tr) protein databases. (sp P16112), aggrecan core precursor (human); (sp P55066), neurocan core protein precursor (murine); (tr O62623), cartilage proteoglycan (bovine); (tr Q13018), PLA2 RE, secretory phospholipase A2 receptor precursor (human); (tr Q64449), mannose receptor, C type 2 (murine); (tr Q91B90), C-type lectin from Cyprinus carpio; (tr Q91840), Aggretin ß-chain from Agkistrodon rhodostoma; (tr Q9IAM0), Agkisacutacin ß-chain from Agkistrodon acutus. Shading shows conservation of residues of the same similarity group within the aligned sequences: black, 100%; dark grey, 80%; and light grey, 60% conservation. Amino acid similarity groups: DN, EQ, ST, KR, FWY, ILMV. (C) Alignment of cysteines in Cys-rich domains of Nowa and minicollagens. The C-terminal Cys-rich part of Nowa is an eightfold repetition (REP1-REP8) of six characteristically spaced cysteines, similar to the MCCR domain in the N- and C-terminal part of minicollagens; shown for minicollagen-1 (tr Q00484) and minicollagen-2 (tr Q00485) both from Hydra magnipapillata, and minicollagen-Ad (tr Q16990) from Acropora donei.