Low protein expression enhances phenotypic evolvability by intensifying selection on folding stability.

ABSTRACT: Protein abundance affects the evolution of protein genotypes, but we do not know how it affects the evolution of protein phenotypes. Here we investigate the role of protein abundance in the evolvability of green fluorescent protein (GFP) towards the novel phenotype of cyan fluorescence. We evolve GFP in E. coli through multiple cycles of mutation and selection and show that low GFP expression facilitates the evolution of cyan fluorescence. A computational model whose predictions we test experimentally helps explain why: lowly expressed proteins are under stronger selection for proper folding, which facilitates their evolvability on short evolutionary time scales. The reason is that high fluorescence can be achieved by either few proteins that fold well or by many proteins that fold less we

SUBMITTER: Karve S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7613228 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature