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Global Identification of Co-Translational Interaction Networks by Selective Ribosome Profiling
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Cytonuclear interactions and relaxed selection accelerate sequence evolution in organelle ribosomes
Daniel B Sloan1, Deborah A Triant, Martin Wu
1Department of Biology, Colorado State University.
Molecular Biology and Evolution
|December 17, 2013
Summary
Nuclear-encoded organelle proteins evolve faster when organelle DNA mutates rapidly. This suggests coevolution between nuclear and organelle genomes drives protein sequence evolution in plants.
Area of Science:
- Molecular Biology
- Evolutionary Biology
- Genomics
Background:
- Mitochondrial and plastid protein complexes often have subunits encoded across different genomes.
- Nuclear-encoded mitochondrial proteins in animals show rapid evolution, possibly due to compensatory mutations for error-prone mitochondrial DNA.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the hypothesis that rapid organelle genome evolution drives compensatory mutations in nuclear-encoded proteins in plants.
- To analyze sequence evolution of nuclear-encoded ribosomal proteins in relation to organelle mutation rates.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of nuclear genes encoding cytosolic and organelle ribosomal proteins in Arabidopsis.
- Comparative analysis of amino acid sequence polymorphism and divergence.
- Transcriptomic data analysis from Silene species with varying organelle genome evolution rates.
Main Results:
- Organelle ribosome subunits in Arabidopsis show higher sequence divergence than cytosolic ribosome counterparts, indicating relaxed functional constraint.
- In Silene, species with faster-evolving mitochondrial and plastid DNA exhibit increased divergence in organelle-targeted ribosomal proteins.
- This effect was not observed for cytosolic ribosome proteins, supporting the role of organelle mutation rates.
Conclusions:
- Rapid evolution of organelle genomes selects for compensatory mutations in nuclear-encoded proteins.
- Coevolution between nuclear and organelle genomes is a key factor influencing protein sequence evolution rates in eukaryotic cells.
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