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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jan 20, 2026

Identification of EGFR and RAS Inhibitors using Caenorhabditis elegans
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Water in Ras Superfamily Evolution.

Kendra Marcus1, Carla Mattos1

  • 1Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Ave, Boston, Massachusetts, 02115.

Journal of Computational Chemistry
|September 5, 2019
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Conserved water molecules coevolved with specificity-determining residues in Ras superfamily proteins. Hydration patterns offer new insights into the evolution of protein function and subfamily differentiation.

Keywords:
Ras, Rho, Rab, Arfcoevolution of protein sequence and water-binding sitesconserved water-binding sitessmall GTPases

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Area of Science:

  • Biochemistry
  • Evolutionary Biology
  • Structural Biology

Background:

  • The Ras GTPase superfamily regulates critical cellular processes like proliferation and vesicle transport.
  • Specificity determinant positions (SDPs) drive functional diversification across Ras, Rho, Rab, and Arf subfamilies.
  • Evolutionary adaptation often involves water molecules, but hydration patterns are typically excluded from phylogenetic analyses.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the coevolution of conserved water molecules and SDP residues within the Ras GTPase superfamily.
  • To determine if hydration patterns can inform phylogenetic analysis of protein evolution.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of crystallographic water molecules and amino acid sequences in Ras superfamily proteins.
  • Comparison of water conservation patterns with sequence-based evolutionary trees.

Main Results:

  • Conserved crystallographic water molecules were found to coevolve with SDP residues during Ras superfamily protein differentiation.
  • Patterns of water conservation between protein subfamilies mirrored established sequence-based evolutionary trees.

Conclusions:

  • Hydration patterns provide a complementary approach to sequence analysis for understanding protein evolution.
  • Conserved water molecules play a significant role in the functional adaptation and diversification of Ras GTPases.
  • Incorporating hydration patterns can enhance phylogenetic analyses of homologous proteins.