review
Protein material costs: single atoms can make an evolutionary difference
Jason G. Bragga b, Andreas Wagnerc d e✉
- aBiology Department, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA
- bPresent address: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
- cThe Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM 87501, USA
- dThe Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
- eUniversity of Zurich, Department of Biochemistry, Building Y27, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zurich, Switzerland
- ✉Corresponding author
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Abstract
The process of gene expression has material costs caused by the quantities of carbon, nitrogen, sulfur and phosphorus that are needed to make mRNAs and proteins. When any such chemical element is ecologically limiting, mutations increasing these costs can reduce growth. Here, we ask if such mutations are 'visible' to natural selection in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We find that mutations causing small increases in expression and even single amino acid replacements can be subject to natural selection on the basis of their material costs.