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Molecular Evolution of the Tre Recombinase
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Molecular function limits divergent protein evolution on planetary timescales.

Mariam M Konaté1,2, Germán Plata1, Jimin Park1,3

  • 1Department of Systems Biology, Columbia University, New York, United States.

Elife
|September 19, 2019
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Protein evolution shows a divergence limit after 1-2 billion years, with sequence and structural similarities stabilizing. This limit is due to restricted amino acid changes per site, not universal conservation.

Keywords:
E. colievolutionevolutionary biologyorthologous protein

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Area of Science:

  • Evolutionary biology
  • Molecular biology
  • Biochemistry

Background:

  • Functional conservation is a known constraint on protein evolution.
  • Long-term divergence patterns of proteins with conserved molecular functions remain underexplored.
  • Understanding divergence limits is crucial for evolutionary studies.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the long-term divergence patterns of ancient protein orthologs with conserved molecular function.
  • To identify the limits of protein divergence over extended evolutionary timescales.
  • To explore the factors contributing to these divergence limits.

Main Methods:

  • Comparative analysis of ancient protein orthologs.
  • Characterization of sequence and structural similarities.
  • Assessment of amino acid substitution patterns and their fitness effects.

Main Results:

  • Divergence in sequence and structure significantly slows after 1-2 billion years of evolution.
  • Sequence and structural similarities have remained relatively stable for the past billion years.
  • Divergence limits are primarily determined by restricted amino acid substitutions per site (<4 types on average), not universal site conservation.
  • Different divergence patterns were observed for sites with small versus large fitness effects of mutations.

Conclusions:

  • Protein divergence reaches an effective limit, stabilizing after extensive evolutionary periods.
  • The observed divergence limit is governed by the tolerance of specific amino acid substitutions at each site.
  • Understanding these limits provides insights into the evolutionary dynamics of functionally conserved proteins.