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The cystatins are a family of cysteine protease inhibitors which share a sequence homology and a common tertiary structure of an alpha helix lying on top of an anti-parallel beta sheet. The family is subdivided as described below. Cystatins show similarity to fetuins, kininogens, histidine-rich glycoproteins and cystatin-related proteins. Cystatins mainly inhibit peptidase enzymes (another term for ''proteases'') belonging to peptidase families C1 (papain family) and C13 (legumain family). They are known to mis-fold to form amyloid deposits and are implicated in several diseases. ==Types== The cystatin family includes: * The Type 1 cystatins, which are intracellular and are present in the cytosol of many cell types, but can also appear in body fluids at significant concentrations. They are single-chain polypeptides of about 100 residues, which have neither disulfide bonds nor carbohydrate side-chains. Type 1 cystatins are also known as Stefins (after the Stefan Institute where they were first discovered ) * The Type 2 cystatins, which are mainly extracellular secreted polypeptides are largely acidic, contain four conserved cysteine residues known to form two disulfide bonds, may be glycosylated and/or phosphorylated. They are synthesised with a 19- to 28-residue signal peptide. They are broadly distributed and found in most body fluids. * The Type 3 cystatins, which are multidomain proteins. The mammalian representatives of this group are the kininogens. There are three different kininogens in mammals: H- (high-molecular-mass, ) and L- (low-molecular-mass) kininogen, which are found in a number of species, and T-kininogen, which is found only in rats. * Unclassified cystatins. These are cystatin-like proteins found in a range of organisms: plant phytocystatins, fetuin in mammals, insect cystatins, and a puff adder venom cystatin, which inhibits metalloproteases of the MEROPS peptidase family M12 (astacin/adamalysin). Also, a number of the cystatin-like proteins have been shown to be devoid of inhibitory activity. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Cystatin」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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