Structural and functional innovations in the real-time evolution of new (βα)₈ barrel enzymes.

ABSTRACT: New genes can arise by duplication and divergence, but there is a fundamental gap in our understanding of the relationship between these genes, the evolving proteins they encode, and the fitness of the organism. Here we used crystallography, NMR dynamics, kinetics, and mass spectrometry to explain the molecular innovations that arose during a previous real-time evolution experiment. In that experiment, the (βα)₈ barrel enzyme HisA was under selection for two functions (HisA and TrpF), resulting in duplication and divergence of the hisA gene to encode TrpF specialists, HisA specialists, and bifunctional generalists. We found that selection affects enzyme structure and dynamics, and thus substrate preference, simultaneously and sequentially. Bifunctionality is associated wi

SUBMITTER: Newton MS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5422803 | biostudies-literature | 2017 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature