Abstract
Analysis of amino acid repeats in four mammalian and one bird genome shows that many are associated preferentially with intrinsically unstructured regions.
Highlights
Amino acid repeats (AARs) are common features of protein sequences
The majority of AARs have arisen during evolution within protein regions with the characteristics of intrinsically unstructured region (IUR)
The dynamics of the evolution of most AARs are, likely to mirror those of IURs
Summary
Amino acid repeats (AARs) are common features of protein sequences They often evolve rapidly and are involved in a number of human diseases. They show significant associations with particular Gene Ontology (GO) functional categories, transcription, suggesting they play some role in protein function. Polyglutamine repeats, the most intensively studied class because of their association with human diseases such as Huntington's [5], tend to be evolutionarily labile, especially when encoded by pure repeats of the codon CAG [6,7] Because of this lability, AARs have often been considered to be evolutionarily neutral structures [8]. Removing a polyalanine tract from murine Hoxd-13 has a direct effect on bone phenotype [19], again indicating involvement of an AAR in an important biological process
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