Molecular Biology and Evolution, Vol 14, 1285-1295, Copyright © 1997 by Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution
GH Thomas, EC Newbern, CC Korte, MA Bales, SV Muse, AG Clark and DP Kiehart
Many structural, signaling, and adhesion molecules contain tandemly
repeated amino acid motifs. The alpha-actinin/spectrin/dystrophin
superfamily of F-actin-crosslinking proteins contains an array of triple
alpha-helical motifs (spectrin repeats). We present here the complete
sequence of the novel beta-spectrin isoform beta(Heavy)- spectrin (beta H).
The sequence of beta H supports the origin of alpha- and beta-spectrins
from a common ancestor, and we present a novel model for the origin of the
spectrins from a homodimeric actin-crosslinking precursor. The pattern of
similarity between the spectrin repeat units indicates that they have
evolved by a series of nested, nonuniform duplications. Furthermore, the
spectrins and dystrophins clearly have common ancestry, yet the repeat unit
is of a different length in each family. Together, these observations
suggest a dynamic period of increase in repeat number accompanied by
homogenization within each array by concerted evolution. However, today,
there is greater similarity of homologous repeats between species than
there is across repeats within species, suggesting that concerted evolution
ceased some time before the arthropod/vertebrate split. We propose a
two-phase model for the evolution of the spectrin repeat arrays in which an
initial phase of concerted evolution is subsequently retarded as each new
protein becomes constrained to a specific length and the repeats diverge at
the DNA level. This evolutionary model has general applicability to the
origins of the many other proteins that have tandemly repeated motifs.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Intragenic duplication and divergence in the spectrin superfamily of proteins
Department of Biology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park 16802. gxt5@psu.edu
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