Abstract
The rate of evolution differs between protein sites and changes with time. However, the link between these two phenomena remains poorly understood. Here, we design a phylogenetic approach for distinguishing pairs of amino acid sites that evolve concordantly, i.e., such that substitutions at one site trigger subsequent substitutions at the other; and also pairs of sites that evolve discordantly, so that substitutions at one site impede subsequent substitutions at the other. We distinguish groups of amino acid sites that undergo coordinated evolution and evolve discordantly from other such groups. In mitochondrion-encoded proteins of metazoans and fungi, we show that concordantly evolving sites are clustered in protein structures. By analysing the phylogenetic patterns of substitutions at concordantly and discordantly evolving site pairs, we find that concordant evolution has two distinct causes: epistatic interactions between amino acid substitutions and episodes of selection independently affecting substitutions at different sites. The rate of substitutions at concordantly evolving groups of protein sites changes in the course of evolution, indicating episodes of selection limited to some of the lineages. The phylogenetic positions of these changes are consistent between proteins, suggesting common selective forces underlying them.
Highlights
IntroductionThe rate at which individual protein sites accumulate substitutions changes in the course of evolution, which violates the assumptions of evolutionary models and may cause problems for phylogenetic reconstruction
Correlated occurrence of amino acids at different sitesThe rate at which individual protein sites accumulate substitutions changes in the course of evolution, which violates the assumptions of evolutionary models and may cause problems for phylogenetic reconstruction
The mode and rate of evolution of a protein site depends on the effect of its mutations on protein fitness
Summary
The rate at which individual protein sites accumulate substitutions changes in the course of evolution, which violates the assumptions of evolutionary models and may cause problems for phylogenetic reconstruction This variability can uniformly affect all substitution types (“heterotachy” [1,2]) or differentiate between them (“heteropecilly” [2]). One type of evidence for this is the correlations between the occurrence of different amino acids at pairs of sites in multiple alignments (MSAs) of homologous sequences Such correlations, inferred using direct coupling analysis (DCA) or related methods, are associated with physical proximity, and are sufficiently strong that they can be used to infer protein structures and interprotein contacts [6,7,8,9,10,11,12] and to predict fitness effects of substitutions [10,13,14]
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