Discovering evolutionary innovations by assessing variation and natural selection in protein tandem repeats
At a glance
- Project leader : Dr. Maria Anisimova
- Project team : Dr. Spencer Bliven, Prof. Dr. Andreas Pluckthun
- Project budget : CHF 180'000
- Project status : completed
- Funding partner : EU and other international programmes
Description
Tandem repeats (TRs) are abundant in proteomes across all
kingdoms of life. Having an impressive variety of sizes, structures
and functions, TRs often offer enhanced binding properties and are
associated with disease and immunity related functions. While
mechanisms generating protein TRs are poorly understood, natural
selection contributes to shaping their evolution, and TR expansion
may be linked to the origin of novel genes.
Specific combinations of TR units with point mutations/indels are
able to ensure desirable protein properties.
Indeed, the design-ability of domain TRs has been successfully
exploited in bioengineering. However, the experimental search for
optimal TR configurations is difficult/inefficient due to the huge
number of possible combinations. We will address this by modeling
the evolution and natural selection in naturally observed proteins
with domain TRs. Combined with annotations of structure, function
and protein-protein interactions, we will pinpoint the naturally
occuring evolutionary innovations, i.e., TR configurations that
have been fixed by selection due to adaptive benefits. These
predictions can serve as testable hypotheses in protein engineering
experiments, allowing to narrow down the search to combinations
with optimal properties according to the natural evolution history.
For ankyrin and armadillo repeats, employed to design medically
relevant proteins, specific recommendations will be made for
further experimental testing.
Publications
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Tørresen, Ole K; Star, Bastiaan; Mier, Pablo; Andrade-Navarro, Miguel A; Bateman, Alex; Jarnot, Patryk; Gruca, Aleksandra; Grynberg, Marcin; Kajava, Andrey V; Promponas, Vasilis J; Anisimova, Maria; Jakobsen, Kjetill S; Linke, Dirk,
2019.
Nucleic Acids Research.
47(21), pp. 10994-11006.
Available from: https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkz841