Sequence-function relationships in intrinsically disordered regions through the lens of evolution

Date

Dec 12, 2019

Time

10:00 AM - 11:00 AM

Speaker

Taraneh Zarin

Affiliation

Department of Cell and Systems Biology, University of Toronto, Canada

Language

en

Main Topic

Biologie

Host

Agnes Toth-Petroczy

Description

ntrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) defy the classical view of proteins as rigidly structured macromolecules, but are widespread in living organisms, and are involved in diverse functions. The majority of IDRs appear to be rapidly evolving, which makes it difficult to associate these regions with biological function using standard sequence analysis. We find that despite high sequence divergence between orthologs, most IDRs contain higher order molecular sequence features that are under natural selection. We demonstrate that IDRs with similar patterns of molecular feature evolution can rescue function in vivo, and that these patterns of evolution are associated with specific functions and phenotypes. Overall, we find that there is rich functional information in the evolution of IDR sequences, and propose that we can use this information to form hypotheses about the vast majority of IDRs that remain uncharacterized.

Last modified: Dec 13, 2019, 12:08:26 AM