Fig. 2: Assessment of intrinsic disorder in cytoplasmic and transmembrane domains of membrane-tethered mucins.

Considering the differential sequence attributes for transmembrane (hydrophobic and lacking protein-protein interacting sites) and cytoplasmic domains (sites for purported signaling functions of mucins), we assessed intrinsic disorder regions across these domains. a.. Pictorial representation from the D²P² disorder predicted in the cytoplasmic tails of MUC4 and MUC16. b. Representative figure of MUC4 and MUC12 transmembrane domain displaying extremely low disorder probability as determined by DisEMBL. Disorder probability increases as values approach 1 and decreases as it approaches 0. The greenish-yellow curve is the disorder prediction for missing residues (those lacking crystal structure), the red curve indicates residues predicted as hot loops, and the blue curve indicates those predicted as coils. Of note, loops and coils are considered necessary but not sufficient for disorder and the lack of these features as predicted by DisEMBL is indicative of a low level of disorder