Layered entrenchment maintains essentiality in the evolution of Form I Rubisco complexes.

ABSTRACT: Protein complexes composed of strictly essential subunits are abundant in nature and often arise through the gradual complexification of ancestral precursor proteins. Essentiality can arise through the accumulation of changes that are tolerated in the complex state but would be deleterious for the standalone complex components. While this theoretical framework to explain how essentiality arises has been proposed long ago, it is unclear which factors cause essentiality to persist over evolutionary timescales. In this work we show that the central enzyme of photosynthesis, ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (Rubisco), can easily start to depend on a newly recruited interaction partner through multiple, genetically distinct mechanisms that affect stability, solubility, and cataly

SUBMITTER: Schulz L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11696622 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature