Singh S, Mittal A. Transmembrane Domain Lengths Serve as Signatures of Organismal Complexity and Viral Transport Mechanisms.
Sci Rep 2016;
6:22352. [PMID:
26925972 PMCID:
PMC4772119 DOI:
10.1038/srep22352]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 26] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/08/2015] [Accepted: 02/12/2016] [Indexed: 12/24/2022] Open
Abstract
It is known that membrane proteins are important in various secretory pathways, with
a possible role of their transmembrane domains (TMDs) as sorting determinant
factors. One key aspect of TMDs associated with various
“checkposts” (i.e. organelles) of intracellular trafficking
is their length. To explore possible linkages in organisms with varying
“complexity” and differences in TMD lengths of membrane
proteins associated with different organelles (such as Endoplasmic Reticulum, Golgi,
Endosomes, Nucleus, Plasma Membrane), we analyzed ~70000 membrane
protein sequences in over 300 genomes of fungi, plants, non-mammalian vertebrates
and mammals. We report that as we move from simpler to complex organisms, variation
in organellar TMD lengths decreases, especially compared to their respective plasma
membranes, with increasing organismal complexity. This suggests an evolutionary
pressure in modulating length of TMDs of membrane proteins with increasing
complexity of communication between sub-cellular compartments. We also report
functional applications of our findings by discovering remarkable distinctions in
TMD lengths of membrane proteins associated with different intracellular transport
pathways. Finally, we show that TMD lengths extracted from viral proteins can serve
as somewhat weak indicators of viral replication sites in plant cells but very
strong indicators of different entry pathways employed by animal viruses.
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