Protein of the Day #18: Cruciferina

Cruciferina: sounds like an all-girl punk group or something. I couldn't find out too much about it, its a cupin-superfamily protein that is a desiccation-tolerant seed storage globulin. "Cupin" comes from the Latin "cupa" for small barrel; cupin proteins have a beta-barrel motif that apparently is useful for all sorts of things. Here's one representation of the barrel (not from Cruciferina in particular) from topsan.org:



Various cupin proteins seem to heavily expressed in the floral nectary tissues studied in my friend Clay Carter's lab.