Ongoing shuffling of protein fragments diversifies core viral functions linked to interactions with bacterial hosts.

ABSTRACT: Biological modularity enhances evolutionary adaptability. This principle is vividly exemplified by bacterial viruses (phages), which display extensive genomic modularity. Phage genomes are composed of independent functional modules that evolve separately and recombine in various configurations. While genomic modularity in phages has been extensively studied, less attention has been paid to protein modularity-proteins consisting of distinct building blocks that can evolve and recombine, enhancing functional and genetic diversity. Here, we use a set of 133,574 representative phage proteins and highly sensitive homology detection to capture instances of domain mosaicism, defined as fragment sharing between two otherwise unrelated proteins, and to understand its relationship with functional di

SUBMITTER: Smug BJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10684548 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature