Anannya Roy, Amity University Kolkata
One of the main functions a cell performs is the synthesis of proteins. This is done with the help of a set of factors called “transcription factors”. A team of researchers from Uppasala University have succeeded in studying transcription factors that are several billion years old. The studies helped them to find out that they had much broader specificities when compared to their present-day modern counterparts. Almost all cells have an inbuilt protein synthesis factory, which consists of ribosomes and various associated translation factors which work together to ensure that any kind of protein production, be it simple or complex, runs smoothly. In today’s world, all sorts of protein-synthesizing machinery are known but the way the process evolved was still a mystery.
The research group at Uppasala University was lead by Professor Suparna Sanyal of the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology. In a previous study, the DNA sequences of ancestors of important translation factors called elongation factor thermostable also known as EF-TU, thus moving back a billion years. These DNA sequences were used in the Uppasala research project to resurrect ancient bacterial EF-TU proteins and study the properties. Upon looking at the nodes of the evolutionary history of the protein, they were found to be 3.3 billion years old. The different environmental conditions of the earth throughout its history were found etched upon the surface of the protein. Compared to today, 3 billion years ago the temperatures were much higher so the proteins functioned optimally at 70 degree Celsius, while proteins which were 300 billion years old functioned best at 50 degree Celsius. This beautifully demonstrates how the ancestral EF-TU proteins matched geological temperatures to their corresponding periods.
These transcription/ elongation factors were found to be compatible with various types of the ribosome, hence they were called ‘Generalists’ which differs from the modern-day descendants because comparatively have much more ‘specialist’ functions. This has both pros and cons because even though they became more efficient it also means that they require specific ribosome to function. The study also sheds light on the fact that ribosomes evolved their RNA core before the other associated transcription factors.
This research provides us lots of insights into the history and evolution of this protein as well as poses possibilities of more evolutions or mutations in the future that will make them even more specialized.. The results of this research will be very helpful in pharmaceuticals research and these ancient protein variants can be used to make therapeutic proteins with little synthetic compounds. There is a large number of possibilities in this field.
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Source: https://academic.oup.com/mbe/advancearticle/doi/10.1093/molbev/msab114/6237919
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