The Small Gtpase Ran

Summary:The Ras-related nuclear protein Ran is a member of the so-called Ras-superfamily of small GTP-binding proteins and hydrolyzing proteins. A variety of edited anthologies related to the Ras-superfamily have appeared over the last decade, but Ran has been under-represented in all of them. This under-representation is not due to the fact that Ran is unimportant or non-abundant. It is almost certainly because Ran was discovered and its functions elucidated only recently, and that some of these functions may not follow the typical Ras-superfamily paradign.