InterPro domain: IPR000591

This entry represents the DEP (Dishevelled, Egl-10 and Pleckstrin) domain, a globular domain of about 80 residues that is found in over 50 proteins involved in G-protein signalling pathways. It was named after the three proteins it was initially found in:

• Dishevelled (Dsh and Dvl), which play a key role in the transduction of the Wg/Wnt signal from the cell surface to the nucleus; it is a segment polarity protein required to establish coherent arrays of polarized cells and segments in embryos, and plays a role in wingless signalling.
• Egl-10, which regulates G-protein signalling in the central nervous system.
• Pleckstrin, the major substrate of protein kinase C in platelets; Pleckstrin contains two PH domains flanking the DEP domain.

Mammalian regulators of G-protein signalling also contain these domains, and regulate signal transduction by increasing the GTPase activity of G-protein alpha subunits, thereby driving them into their inactive GDP-bound form. It has been proposed that the DEP domain could play a selective role in targeting DEP domain-containing proteins to specific subcellular membranous sites, perhaps even to specific G protein-coupled signaling pathways [ 1 , 2 ]. Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy has revealed that the DEP domain comprises a three-helix bundle, a beta-hairpin 'arm' composed of two beta-strands and two short beta-strands in the C-terminal region [ 3 ].

1. Regulators of G protein signaling: a bestiary of modular protein binding domains. J. Neurochem. 75, 1335-51
2. Structural basis of the recognition of the dishevelled DEP domain in the Wnt signaling pathway. Nat. Struct. Biol. 7, 1178-84