Plant pathology and plant-microbe biology faculty members Kerik Cox and Herb Aldwinckle first identified a handful of naturally occurring insecticides produced by bacteria, fungi and plants known to fend off other types of insects.
MiR-34 family members were first identified as tumor suppressors [ 10, 11] and are associated with a variety of tumors [ 17].
The SRC family of coactivator consists of three family members: SRC1, the first identified nuclear receptor coactivator (also known as p160-1 aN-CoA1oA1), SRC-2 (TIF-2, GRIP1, and N-CoA2) and SRC3 (also known as P/CIP, ACTR, AIB1, RAC3, and TRAM1) [ 34].
Formation of the bipartite complex of Docks and ELMO is one of the most important regulatory ways to activate the GEF activity of Dock-A and -B members toward Rac., As the first identified member of Dock protein family, Dock180 has been found to play diverse roles in phagocytosis and cell migration.
Based on tree topology and confidence on nodes (bootstrap values >50), we defined 13 clusters containing characterised sequences, which were named by referring to one characterised member (usually the first identified).
DNAJA1 (also known as HSJ 2, heat-shock 40-kd protein 4 or dnaJ homolog subfamily A member 1) was first identified in 1993 and is now known to have an important and highly conserved role in the molecular chaperone system for protein folding, unfolding and degradation, acting as the primary co-chaperone of the constitutively expressed Hsp70 variant, Hsc70.
MADS transcription factors are highly conserved across the plant kingdom and are easily recognizable by the eponymous MADS domain, named after the first identified members of the gene family [ 9- 13].
The first identified members of the C2H2-ZNF family were Xenopus TFIIIA and Drosophila Kruppel and thus genes of this family are often called zinc finger genes of the TFIIIA or Kruppel type [ 6, 8].
CCN growth factor family is named after the three first identified members – Cyr61 (cysteine-rich protein 61, CCN1), CTGF (connective tissue growth factor, CCN2), and Nov (nephroblastoma overexpressed, CCN3) (Bork, 1993).
This family of gene regulatory proteins is composed of five members (NFAT1-5) [3,4], that were first identified as fundamental components of the recombinatorial immune system of vertebrates [5], but which have now been implicated in a far broader range of diverse and important physiological processes.
