The Missing Expression Level-Evolutionary Rate Anticorrelation in Viruses Does Not Support Protein Function as a Main Constraint on Sequence Evolution.

ABSTRACT: One of the central goals in molecular evolutionary biology is to determine the sources of variation in the rate of sequence evolution among proteins. Gene expression level is widely accepted as the primary determinant of protein evolutionary rate, because it scales with the extent of selective constraints imposed on a protein, leading to the well-known negative correlation between expression level and protein evolutionary rate (the E-R anticorrelation). Selective constraints have been hypothesized to entail the maintenance of protein function, the avoidance of cytotoxicity caused by protein misfolding or nonspecific protein-protein interactions, or both. However, empirical tests evaluating the relative importance of these hypotheses remain scarce, likely due to the nontrivial difficulties

SUBMITTER: Wei C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7989579 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature