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- Title
Moonlighting peptides with emerging function.
- Authors
Rodríguez Plaza, Jonathan G; Villalón Rojas, Amanda; Herrera, Sur; Garza-Ramos, Georgina; Torres Larios, Alfredo; Amero, Carlos; Zarraga Granados, Gabriela; Gutiérrez Aguilar, Manuel; Lara Ortiz, María Teresa; Polanco Gonzalez, Carlos; Uribe Carvajal, Salvador; Coria, Roberto; Peña Díaz, Antonio; Bredesen, Dale E; Castro-Obregon, Susana; del Rio, Gabriel
- Abstract
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.
- Publication
PloS one, 2012, Vol 7, Issue 7, pe40125
- ISSN
1932-6203
- Publication type
Journal Article
- DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0040125