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Moonlighting Peptides with Emerging Function

2012; Public Library of Science; Volume: 7; Issue: 7 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1371/journal.pone.0040125

1932-6203

Jonathan G. Rodríguez Plaza, Amanda Villalón Rojas, Sur Herrera Paredes, Georgina Garza‐Ramos, Alfredo Torres‐Larios, Carlos Amero, Gabriela Zarraga Granados, Manuel Gutiérrez‐Aguilar, María Teresa Lara Ortiz, Carlos Polanco, Salvador Uribe‐Carvajal, Roberto Coria, Antonio Peña Díaz, Dale E. Bredesen, Susana Castro‐Obregón, Gabriel del Rio,

Fungal and yeast genetics research

Hunter-killer peptides combine two activities in a single polypeptide that work in an independent fashion like many other multi-functional, multi-domain proteins. We hypothesize that emergent functions may result from the combination of two or more activities in a single protein domain and that could be a mechanism selected in nature to form moonlighting proteins. We designed moonlighting peptides using the two mechanisms proposed to be involved in the evolution of such molecules (i.e., to mutate non-functional residues and the use of natively unfolded peptides). We observed that our moonlighting peptides exhibited two activities that together rendered a new function that induces cell death in yeast. Thus, we propose that moonlighting in proteins promotes emergent properties providing a further level of complexity in living organisms so far unappreciated.