Fortuitously compatible protein surfaces primed allosteric control in cyanobacterial photoprotection.

ABSTRACT: Highly specific interactions between proteins are a fundamental prerequisite for life, but how they evolve remains an unsolved problem. In particular, interactions between initially unrelated proteins require that they evolve matching surfaces. It is unclear whether such surface compatibilities can only be built by selection in small incremental steps, or whether they can also emerge fortuitously. Here, we used molecular phylogenetics, ancestral sequence reconstruction and biophysical characterization of resurrected proteins to retrace the evolution of an allosteric interaction between two proteins that act in the cyanobacterial photoprotection system. We show that this interaction between the orange carotenoid protein (OCP) and its unrelated regulator, the fluorescence recovery protein (F

SUBMITTER: Steube N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10172135 | biostudies-literature | 2023 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature