Download MendeleyComprehensive phylogenetic analysis of the ribonucleotide reductase family reveals an ancestral clade.
Burnim, A.A., Spence, M.A., Xu, D., Jackson, C.J., Ando, N.(2022) Elife 11
- PubMed: 36047668
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.79790
- Primary Citation of Related Structures:
7URG - PubMed Abstract:
Ribonucleotide reductases (RNRs) are used by all free-living organisms and many viruses to catalyze an essential step in the de novo biosynthesis of DNA precursors. RNRs are remarkably diverse by primary sequence and cofactor requirement, while sharing a conserved fold and radical-based mechanism for nucleotide reduction. Here, we structurally aligned the diverse RNR family by the conserved catalytic barrel to reconstruct the first large-scale phylogeny consisting of 6779 sequences that unites all extant classes of the RNR family and performed evo-velocity analysis to independently validate our evolutionary model. With a robust phylogeny in-hand, we uncovered a novel, phylogenetically distinct clade that is placed as ancestral to the classes I and II RNRs, which we have termed clade Ø. We employed small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), cryogenic-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), and AlphaFold2 to investigate a member of this clade from Synechococcus phage S-CBP4 and report the most minimal RNR architecture to-date. Based on our analyses, we propose an evolutionary model of diversification in the RNR family and delineate how our phylogeny can be used as a roadmap for targeted future study.
Organizational Affiliation:
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, United States.
