This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a colleague Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in ISI Web of Science Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to My File Cabinet Download to citation manager Request Copyright Permission Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via CrossRef Citing Articles via ISI Web of Science (17) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Zhang, J. Articles by Long, M. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Zhang, J. Articles by Long, M. Social Bookmarking                What's this?

 Previous Article  | Table of Contents |  Next Article 

GENETICS
Evolving protein functional diversity in new genes of Drosophila

Jianming Zhang ^*, Antony M. Dean , Frédéric Brunet ^* , and Manyuan Long ^*, 

^*Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637; and BioTechnology Institute, 240 Gortner Laboratories, University of Minnesota, 1479 Gortner Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55108

Communicated by Tomoko Ohta, National Institute of Genetics, Mishima, Japan, September 28, 2004 (received for review August 16, 2004)

The mechanism by which protein functional diversity expands is an important evolutionary issue. Studies of recently evolved chimeric genes permit direct investigation of the origin of new protein functions before they become obscured by subsequent evolution. Found in several African Drosophila species, jingwei (jgw), a recently evolved gene with a domain derived from the still extant short-chain alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) through retroposition, provides an opportunity to examine this previously undescribed process directly. We expressed JGW proteins in a microbial expression system and, after purification, investigated their enzymatic properties. We found that, unexpectedly, positive Darwinian selection for amino acid replacements outside the active site of JGW produced a novel dehydrogenase with altered substrate specificity compared with the ancestral ADH. Instead of detoxifying and assimilating ethanol like its Adh parental gene, we observe that JGW efficiently utilizes long-chain primary alcohols found in hormone and pheromone metabolism. These data suggest that protein functional diversity can expand rapidly under the joint forces of exon shuffling, gene duplication, and natural selection.

Abbreviations: ADH, alcohol dehydrogenase; SDR, short-chain dehydrogenase/reductase.

Present address: Laboratoire de Biologie Moléculaire de la Cellule, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, 46, Allée d'Italie, F-69634, Lyon Cedex, France.

To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: mlong{at}midway.uchicago.edu.

© 2004 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles in HighWire Press-hosted journals:

				M.-S. Shiao, P. Khil, R. D. Camerini-Otero, T. Shiroishi, K. Moriwaki, H.-T. Yu, and M. Long Origins of New Male Germ-line Functions from X-Derived Autosomal Retrogenes in the Mouse Mol. Biol. Evol., October 1, 2007; 24(10): 2242 - 2253. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				C. Diaz-Castillo and K. G. Golic Evolution of Gene Sequence in Response to Chromosomal Location Genetics, September 1, 2007; 177(1): 359 - 374. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				M. E. Feder Evolvability of physiological and biochemical traits: evolutionary mechanisms including and beyond single-nucleotide mutation J. Exp. Biol., May 1, 2007; 210(9): 1653 - 1660. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				R. Kalamegham, D. Sturgill, E. Siegfried, and B. Oliver Drosophila mojoless, a Retroposed GSK-3, Has Functionally Diverged to Acquire an Essential Role in Male Fertility Mol. Biol. Evol., March 1, 2007; 24(3): 732 - 742. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				M. Hasselmann and M. Beye Pronounced Differences of Recombination Activity at the Sex Determination Locus of the Honeybee, a Locus Under Strong Balancing Selection Genetics, November 1, 2006; 174(3): 1469 - 1480. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				W. Wang, H. Zheng, C. Fan, J. Li, J. Shi, Z. Cai, G. Zhang, D. Liu, J. Zhang, S. Vang, et al. High Rate of Chimeric Gene Origination by Retroposition in Plant Genomes PLANT CELL, August 1, 2006; 18(8): 1791 - 1802. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				S. Iwashita, S. Ueno, K. Nakashima, S.-Y. Song, K. Ohshima, K. Tanaka, H. Endo, J. Kimura, M. Kurohmaru, K. Fukuta, et al. A Tandem Gene Duplication Followed by Recruitment of a Retrotransposon Created the Paralogous Bucentaur Gene (bcntp97) in the Ancestral Ruminant Mol. Biol. Evol., April 1, 2006; 23(4): 798 - 806. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				W. Wang, H. Zheng, S. Yang, H. Yu, J. Li, H. Jiang, J. Su, L. Yang, J. Zhang, J. McDermott, et al. Origin and evolution of new exons in rodents Genome Res., September 1, 2005; 15(9): 1258 - 1264. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				C. D. Jones and D. J. Begun Parallel evolution of chimeric fusion genes PNAS, August 9, 2005; 102(32): 11373 - 11378. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				C. D. Jones, A. W. Custer, and D. J. Begun Origin and Evolution of a Chimeric Fusion Gene in Drosophila subobscura, D. madeirensis and D. guanche Genetics, May 1, 2005; 170(1): 207 - 219. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Current Issue | Archives | Online Submission | Info for Authors | Editorial Board | About Subscribe | Advertise | Contact | Site Map Copyright © 2004 by the National Academy of Sciences