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==Key Questions==
==Key Questions==
What are the spectrum, frequency and consequences of errors in protein synthesis? How do eukaryotic cells sense and respond to misfolded proteins, particularly in the cytosol? How does stochasticity in protein synthesis alter the composition and stability of the proteome? Are some errors beneficial? Does error-induced protein misfolding influence the progression of neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS?
What are the spectrum, frequency and consequences of errors in protein synthesis? How do eukaryotic cells sense and respond to misfolded proteins, particularly in the cytosol? How does stochasticity in protein synthesis alter the composition and stability of the proteome? Are some errors beneficial? Does error-induced protein misfolding influence the progression of neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS?


We are pursuing mechanistic answers to these questions, taking a biochemical and genetic approach, with an emphasis on developing high-resolution, high-mass-accuracy mass spectrometric techniques for proteome-scale quantitation. From a theoretical standpoint, we are interested in understanding the imprints that natural selection on fidelity and misfolding leave on evolving genes and genomes.
We are pursuing mechanistic answers to these questions, taking a biochemical and genetic approach, with an emphasis on developing high-resolution, high-mass-accuracy mass spectrometric techniques for proteome-scale quantitation. From a theoretical standpoint, we are interested in understanding the imprints that natural selection on fidelity and misfolding leave on evolving genes and genomes.
 
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==Fitness costs and cellular consequences of misfolding==
 
Evolving lineages face a constant intracellular threat: most new coding-sequence
mutations destabilize the folding of the encoded protein. Misfolded proteins form
insoluble aggregates and are hypothesized to be intrinsically cytotoxic. Here,
we experimentally isolate a fitness cost caused by toxicity of misfolded proteins. We
exclude other costs of protein misfolding, such as loss of functional protein or attenuation
of growth-limiting protein-synthesis resources, by comparing growth rates of budding
yeast expressing folded or misfolded variants of a gratuitous protein, yellow fluorescent
protein (YFP), at equal levels. We quantify a fitness cost that increases with misfolded
protein abundance, up to as much as a 3.2% growth-rate reduction when misfolded YFP
represents less than 0.1% of total cellular protein. Comparable experiments on variants of
the yeast gene URA3 produce similar results. Quantitative proteomic measurements
reveal that within the cell, misfolded YFP induces coordinated synthesis of interacting
cytosolic chaperone proteins in the absence of a wider stress response, providing
evidence for an evolved modular response to misfolded proteins in the cytosol. These
results underscore the distinct and evolutionarily relevant molecular threat of protein
misfolding, independent of protein function. Assuming most misfolded proteins impose
similar costs, yeast cells express almost all proteins at steady-state levels sufficient to
expose their encoding genes to selection against misfolding, lending credibility to the
recent suggestion that such selection imposes a global constraint on molecular evolution.
 
Supporting website [[Drummond:MisfoldingCost2010|here]].
 
==Mistranslation-induced misfolding and gene evolution==
Strikingly consistent correlations between rates of coding-sequence evolution and gene expression levels are apparent across taxa, but the biological causes behind the selective pressures on coding-sequence evolution remain controversial. Here we demonstrate conserved patterns of simple covariation between sequence evolution, codon usage, and mRNA level in E. coli, yeast, worm, fly, mouse, and human that suggest that all observed trends stem largely from a unified underlying selective pressure. In metazoans, these trends are strongest in tissues composed of neurons, whose structure and lifetime confer extreme sensitivity to protein misfolding. We propose, and demonstrate using a molecular-level evolutionary simulation, that selection against toxicity of misfolded proteins generated by ribosome errors suffices to create all the observed covariation. The mechanistic model of molecular evolution which emerges yields testable biochemical predictions, calls into question use of nonsynonymous-to-synonymous substitution ratios (Ka/Ks) to detect functional selection, and suggests how mistranslation may contribute to neurodegenerative disease.
 
===Citation===
#Mistranslation-induced protein misfolding as a dominant constraint on coding-sequence evolution. Drummond DA, Wilke CO. <em>Cell.</em> 2008 Jul 25;134(2):341-52. [http://www.f1000biology.com/article/id/1122806 Faculty of 1000 rated] <br/> Preview by [http://www.cell.com/content/article/abstract?uid=PIIS0092867408008829 Powers and Balch].  Download [[Media:Drummond08-MisfoldingPreprint.pdf|preprint PDF]], [[Media:Drummond08-MisfoldingPreprintSuppl.pdf|supplementary materials]], [[Drummond:Research#Mistranslation-induced_misfolding_and_gene_evolution|data]]. 
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#Drummond-Cell-2008 pmid=18662548
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===Data===
 
====Evolution and expression data====
These tab-delimited files include gene and ortholog identifiers, dN, dS, ts/tv ratio, expression level, Fop, and (for the multicellular organisms) intronic guanine/cytosine (GC) content.
*[[Media:DrummondWilkeCell2008Data.zip|Evolution and expression data]] [ZIP archive, ~800K]
 
====Coding sequence alignments====
Alignments are in FASTA format, ZIP-compressed.
*[[Media:Ecoli-styphimurium-alignments.zip|<i>E. coli</i> vs. <i>S. typhimurium</i>]] (~1.8MB)
*[[Media:Scer-spar-alignments.zip|<i>S. cerevisiae</i> vs. <i>S. paradoxus</i>]] (~3.8MB)
*[[Media:Cele-cbri-alignments.zip|<i>C. elegans</i> vs. <i>C. briggsae</i>]] (~4.7MB)
*[[Media:Dmel-dyak-alignments.zip|<i>D. melanogaster</i> vs. <i>D. yakuba</i>]] (~5.3MB)
*[[Media:Mouse-rat-alignments.zip|<i>M. musculus</i> vs. <i>R. norvegicus</i>]] (~8.7MB)
*[[Media:Human-dog-alignments.zip|<i>H. sapiens</i> vs. <i>C. familiaris</i>]] (~8.3MB)
 


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