Similarity analysis of primary and secondary structures of metallothioneins

Metallothioneins (MTs) are small cysteine-rich proteins that are involved in many diverse biological processes, which are interesting especially due to their influence on therapy of cancer. The primary structures of MTs from different organisms are various despite they have the same purpose - a transport of metal ions in organisms. Every single mutation in amino acid sequences can have a drastic effect to secondary structures thereby on MTs function. This study presents dependence of diversity of primary and secondary structures on function of MTs.