Src homology-3 domain SH3 (src Homology-3) domains are small protein modules containing approximately 50 amino acid residues [<cite idref="PUB00001025"/>, <cite idref="PUB00007145"/>]. They are found in a great variety of intracellular or membrane-associated proteins [<cite idref="PUB00001644"/>, <cite idref="PUB00005506"/>, <cite idref="PUB00004203"/>] for example, in a variety of proteins with enzymatic activity, in adaptor proteins that lack catalytic sequences and in cytoskeletal proteins, such as fodrin and yeast actin binding protein ABP-1. <p>The SH3 domain has a characteristic fold which consists of five or six beta-strands arranged as two tightly packed anti-parallel beta sheets. The linker regions may contain short helices [<cite idref="PUB00001083"/>]. The surface of the SH3-domain bears a flat, hydrophobic ligand-binding pocket which consists of three shallow grooves defined by conservative aromatic residues in which the ligand adopts an extended left-handed helical arrangement. The ligand binds with low affinity but this may be enhanced by multiple interactions.The region bound by the SH3 domain is in all cases proline-rich and contains PXXP as a core-conserved binding motif. The function of the SH3 domain is not well understood but they may mediate many diverse processes such as increasing local concentration of proteins, altering their subcellular location and mediating the assembly of large multiprotein complexes [<cite idref="PUB00001031"/>].</p><p>The crystal structure of the SH3 domain of the cytoskeletal proteinspectrin, and the solution structures of SH3 domains of phospholipase C(PLC-y) and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase p85 alpha-subunit, have beendetermined [<cite idref="PUB00004135"/>, <cite idref="PUB00000895"/>, <cite idref="PUB00000887"/>]. In spite of relatively limited sequence similarity, their overall structures are similar. The domains belong to the alpha+beta structural class, with 5 to 8 beta-strands forming 2 tightly-packed, anti-parallel beta-sheets arranged in a barrel-like structure, and interveningloops sometimes forming helices. Conserved aliphatic and aromatic residuesform a hydrophobic core (A11, L23, A29, V34, W42, L52 and V59 in PLC-y [<cite idref="PUB00000887"/>]) and a hydrophobic pocket on the molecular surface (L12, F13, W53 and P55 in PLC-y). The conserved core is believed to stabilise the fold, while thepocket is thought to serve as a binding site for target proteins. Conservedcarboxylic amino acids located in the loops, on the periphery of thepocket (D14 and E22), may be involved in protein-protein interactions viaproline-rich regions. The N- and C-termini are packed in close proximity,indicating that they are independent structural modules.</p>