Nature Communications (Nov 2016)

Positive and strongly relaxed purifying selection drive the evolution of repeats in proteins

  • Erez Persi,
  • Yuri I. Wolf,
  • Eugene V Koonin

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms13570
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 7, no. 1
pp. 1 – 11

Abstract

Read online

Protein repeats may be considered a paradox, being evolutionarily conserved yet also hotspots of protein evolution associated with innovation. Here, the authors use a novel method to show that new repeats undergo rapid divergence within species, but are then fixed and conserved between species.