西亚试剂：Measuring the evolutionary rate of protein–protein interact

Measuring the evolutionary rate of protein–protein interaction

Qian, Wenfeng; He, Xionglei; Chan, Edwin; Xu, Huailiang; Zhang, Jianzhi

Despite our extensive knowledge about the rate of protein sequence evolution for thousands of genes in hundreds of species,the corresponding rate of protein function evolution is virtually unknown, especially at the genomic scale. This lack of knowledgeis primarily because of the huge diversity in protein function and the consequent difficulty in gauging and comparing ratesof protein function evolution. Nevertheless, most proteins function through interacting with other proteins, and protein–proteininteraction (PPI) can be tested by standard assays. Thus, the rate of protein function evolution may be measured by the rateof PPI evolution. Here, we experimentally examine 87 potential interactions between Kluyveromyces waltii proteins, whose one to one orthologs in the related budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae have been reported to interact. Combining our results with available data from other eukaryotes, we estimate that the evolutionaryrate of protein interaction is (2.6 ± 1.6) × 10?10 per PPI per year, which is three orders of magnitude lower than the rate of protein sequence evolution measured by the numberof amino acid substitutions per protein per year. The extremely slow evolution of protein molecular function may account forthe remarkable conservation of life at molecular and cellular levels and allow for studying the mechanistic basis of humandisease in much simpler organisms.