Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; Department of Chemical Engineering and ChEM-H Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
Curr Biol. 2020 May 18;30(10):R460-R464. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.02.075.
Duplication and divergence is a major mechanism by which new proteins and functions emerge in biology. Consequently, most organisms, in all domains of life, have genomes that encode large paralogous families of proteins. For recently duplicated pathways to acquire different, independent functions, the two paralogs must acquire mutations that effectively insulate them from one another. For instance, paralogous signaling proteins must acquire mutations that endow them with different interaction specificities such that they can participate in different signaling pathways without disruptive cross-talk. Although duplicated genes undoubtedly shape each other's evolution as they diverge and attain new functions, it is less clear how other paralogs impact or constrain gene duplication. Does the establishment of a new pathway by duplication and divergence require the system-wide optimization of all paralogs? The answer has profound implications for molecular evolution and our ability to engineer biological systems. Here, we discuss models, experiments, and approaches for tackling this question, and for understanding how new proteins and pathways are born.
复制和分歧是生物学中产生新蛋白质和功能的主要机制。因此，大多数生物，在所有生命领域，都有基因组编码大量的蛋白质的同源家族。对于最近复制的途径获得不同的、独立的功能，两个同源基因必须获得突变，使它们彼此有效隔离。例如，同源信号蛋白必须获得赋予它们不同相互作用特异性的突变，以便它们可以参与不同的信号通路，而不会产生破坏性的串扰。虽然复制基因在分化和获得新功能时无疑会相互影响，但其他同源基因如何影响或限制基因复制还不太清楚。通过复制和分歧建立新途径是否需要所有同源基因的系统优化？这个答案对分子进化和我们设计生物系统的能力有着深远的影响。在这里，我们讨论了解决这个问题的模型、实验和方法，以及如何理解新的蛋白质和途径是如何诞生的。
