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Semi-automated Biopanning of Bacterial Display Libraries for Peptide Affinity Reagent Discovery and Analysis of Resulting Isolates
Published on: December 6, 2017
Do pheromone binding proteins converge in amino acid sequence when pheromones converge?
1Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA. cwillett@ucsd.edu
Journal of Molecular Evolution
|February 23, 2000
Summary
Protein sequence convergence can indicate selection. This study found little evidence of amino acid sequence convergence in moth pheromone binding proteins (PBPs) despite similar pheromone use, suggesting limited adaptive evolution in PBPs.
Area of Science:
- Evolutionary biology
- Molecular evolution
- Biochemistry
Background:
- Proteins can evolve similar amino acid sequences (convergence) due to similar selective pressures.
- Pheromone binding proteins (PBPs) in male moths are crucial for detecting sex pheromones.
- Convergent evolution in pheromones may drive convergent evolution in PBPs.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if moth pheromone binding proteins (PBPs) show evidence of convergent amino acid sequences.
- To determine if PBPs have adapted convergently in response to the use of common pheromone components.
Main Methods:
- Comparative analysis of amino acid sequences of PBPs across different moth taxa.
- Identification of moth species that utilize similar major pheromone components, specifically (E)- or (Z)-11-tetradecenyl acetate.
- Examination of specific amino acid sites within PBPs for patterns of convergence or parallelism.
Main Results:
- Little evidence for significant amino acid sequence convergence was found in PBPs among taxa using similar pheromones.
- A few amino acid sites showed patterns suggestive of convergence or parallelism, but could represent ancestral states.
- Two potentially convergent sites were located within the proposed PBP binding regions.
Conclusions:
- Convergent evolution in moth pheromone components does not appear to strongly drive convergent amino acid sequence evolution in PBPs.
- PBPs may have evolved limited sequence convergence, or convergence at very few sites, in response to shared pheromone components.
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