Conclusion - Summary

 

cdc42 is a molecule implicated in a range of cellular signalling cascades from cellular mitotic division and growth to neuronal development and morphogenesis. Herein, we have exploited the biological role of cdc42 and performed sequence analyses on the molecule using several bioinformatics tools. By using archeotypes of homologues from several different species we demonstrated that because it exerts non-redundant roles, it is highly conserved among species. We presented the FASTA sequences of the four homologues chosen and their BLASTA analysis to examine their sequences. Bioinformatics tools such as Clustal Omega and MultAlin were used to run multiple sequence alignments in order to further examine their conserved domains, the parts of the sequence that form each domain and to further analyse them. We explained in more detail the role of each modular domain as well as its position within the cdc42 protein sequence. We analysed the cdc42 structure using PDB and Rasmol and generated 3D structures of the molecule, explaining the different parts of the molecule and their biological role. The data we gathered suggested that cdc42 is a well conserved molecule that has to function under normal physiological conditions. Alterations of the cdc42 in humans can be detrimental to the individual and lead to the formation of cancerous cells and oncogenesis.