The use of ELM and MnM servers for the prediction of RANK function in osteoclast formation

Osteoporosis is a skeletal disorder which weakens the bones and increases the risk of the bone cracking. There are many factors included in the pathogenesis of osteoporosis and a lot of them still remain unknown. The RANK/RANKL system is involved in osteoclast maturation. By binding to its receptor (RANK), RANKL stimulates osteoclast precursors to develop into fully mature osteoclasts. RANK transmits biochemical signals after the recruitment of the intracellular adaptor TNF receptor associated factor (TRAF) proteins. TRAF6 binds to RANK and plays an essential role in RANKL-mediated NF-κβ activation in transfected cell systems.The Eukaryotic Linear Motif (ELM) and MiniMotif Miner (MnM) servers are web-based tools that can be very useful to identify small linear sequences, called motifs.In this paper, we have researched the possibility to predict some protein functions with ELM and MnM servers, using an example of RANK protein interactions with other proteins involved in osteoclast maturation. We couldn’t find prediction of the experimentally proven RANK/RANKL interaction, but on the other hand, the prediction for the RANK/TRAF interactions where mostly true. The use of these tools can be a good starting point for the research of unknown protein functions, but every claim has to be experimentally proven afterwards.