Molecular evolution and selection pressure in alpha-class carbonic anhydrase family members

Carbonic anhydrases (CA) are ubiquitous, and their involvement in diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, and glaucoma is well known. Most members of this family of metalloenzymes convert carbon dioxide to bicarbonate with the help of a Zn(2+) cofactor. While the expression patterns and kinetic activities of many of these isozymes have been studied, little is known about the differences in the conservation patterns of individual residues. To better understand the molecular evolution of the CA gene family, we created multiple sequence alignments and analyzed the selection pressure (dN/dS ratios) on surface and active site residues in 248 mammalian sequences of the 14 known family members. Using the values found for amino acids of known functional importance (i.e. the three histidines that bind the zinc cofactor) as our baseline, we were able to identify other regions of possible structural and functional importance.