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The scale-free nature of protein sequence space.

ABSTRACT: The sequence space of five protein superfamilies was investigated by constructing sequence networks. The nodes represent individual sequences, and two nodes are connected by an edge if the global sequence identity of two sequences exceeds a threshold. The networks were characterized by their degree distribution (number of nodes with a given number of neighbors) and by their fractal network dimension. Although the five protein families differed in sequence length, fold, and domain arrangement, their network properties were similar. The fractal network dimension Df was distance-dependent: a high dimension for single and double mutants (Df = 4.0), which dropped to Df = 0.7-1.0 at 90% sequence identity, and increased to Df = 3.5-4.5 below 70% sequence identity. The distance dependency of the network dimension is consistent with evolutionary constraints for functional proteins. While random single and double mutations often result in a functional protein, the accumulation of more than ten mutations is dominated by epistasis. The networks of the five protein families were highly inhomogeneous with few highly connected communities ("hub sequences") and a large number of smaller and less connected communities. The degree distributions followed a power-law distribution with similar scaling exponents close to 1. Because the hub sequences have a large number of functional neighbors, they are expected to be robust toward possible deleterious effects of mutations. Because of their robustness, hub sequences have the potential of high innovability, with additional mutations readily inducing new functions. Therefore, they form hotspots of evolution and are promising candidates as starting points for directed evolution experiments in biotechnology.

SUBMITTER: Buchholz PCF

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6070207 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The scale-free nature of protein sequence space.

Buchholz Patrick C F PCF Zeil Catharina C Pleiss Jürgen J

PloS one 20180801 8

The sequence space of five protein superfamilies was investigated by constructing sequence networks. The nodes represent individual sequences, and two nodes are connected by an edge if the global sequence identity of two sequences exceeds a threshold. The networks were characterized by their degree distribution (number of nodes with a given number of neighbors) and by their fractal network dimension. Although the five protein families differed in sequence length, fold, and domain arrangement, th ...[more]

PMID: 30067815

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Project description:The specificity of the kinase-regulator interaction is driven by a limited set of interfacial residues in each protein that strongly. To identify combinations of these interface residues that are functional and potentially insulated from existing two-component signaling pathways in E. coli, we constructed a dual library of mutants in which the key, coevolving interface residues of a canonical two-component system, PhoQ and PhoP, were randomized. We used NNS codons to randomize six residues in PhoQ and five residues in PhoP, all of which lie at the interface formed by the two proteins in complex and that are critical to determining partner specificity in all two-component signaling pathways. To identify functional combinations of residues, we first grew the library of PhoQ-PhoP variants overnight in medium with low Mg2+, which activates PhoQ. Because cells must phosphorylate PhoP to grow when extracellular Mg2+ is limiting, this step enriches for functional PhoQ-PhoP variants. Variants that survived selection in limiting Mg2+ were then subjected to Sort-Seq, using fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) and deep sequencing to quantify the signal responsiveness of variants in the library. To gauge the phosphorylation of PhoP in vivo, we used a fluorescent transcriptional reporter, PmgrB-yfp. In the presence of low extracellular Mg2+, functional PhoQ promotes the phosphorylation of PhoP and the production of YFP, whereas in the presence of high concentrations of Mg2+, PhoQ drives the dephosphorylation of PhoP, limiting the accumulation of YFP). The library was grown in each condition for 6 hours before sorting and sequencing. To identify variants that are signal responsive and drive YFP production specifically in low Mg2+, we sorted cells from each condition into 8 separate bins and deep sequenced the randomized regions of variants collected in each bin. We then calculated the frequency of each variant in each bin to yield the distributions of individual variants in low and high Mg2+, which were fit to Gaussians. From these fits, we assessed the mean level of YFP in each condition and the fold-induction, or signal responsiveness, of each variant detected in the library. The 11 codons / amino acids listed in this dataset refer to codons 12, 14, 15, 18, and 19 in PhoP and codons 284, 288, 289, 292, 302, and 303 in PhoQ, in that order.

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The scale-free nature of protein sequence space.

Publications

The scale-free nature of protein sequence space.

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