Evolution of Robustness to Protein Mistranslation by Accelerated Protein Turnover

Translational errors occur at high rates, and they influence organism viability and the onset of genetic diseases. To investigate how organisms mitigate the deleterious effects of protein synthesis errors during evolution, a mutant yeast strain was engineered to translate a codon ambiguously (mistranslation). It thereby overloads the protein quality-control pathways and disrupts cellular protein homeostasis. This strain was used to study the capacity of the yeast genome to compensate the deleterious effects of protein mistranslation. Laboratory evolutionary experiments revealed that fitness loss due to mistranslation can rapidly be mitigated. Genomic analysis demonstrated that adaptation was primarily mediated by large-scale chromosomal duplication and deletion events, suggesting that errors during protein synthesis promote the evolution of genome architecture. By altering the dosages of numerous, functionally related proteins simultaneously, these genetic changes introduced large phenotypic leaps that enabled rapid adaptation to mistranslation. Evolution increased the level of tolerance to mistranslation through acceleration of ubiquitin-proteasome–mediated protein degradation and protein synthesis. As a consequence of rapid elimination of erroneous protein products, evolution reduced the extent of toxic protein aggregation in mistranslating cells. However, there was a strong evolutionary trade-off between adaptation to mistranslation and survival upon starvation: the evolved lines showed fitness defects and impaired capacity to degrade mature ribosomes upon nutrient limitation. Moreover, as a response to an enhanced energy demand of accelerated protein turnover, the evolved lines exhibited increased glucose uptake by selective duplication of hexose transporter genes. We conclude that adjustment of proteome homeostasis to mistranslation evolves rapidly, but this adaptation has several side effects on cellular physiology. Our work also indicates that translational fidelity and the ubiquitin-proteasome system are functionally linked to each other and may, therefore, co-evolve in nature. © 2015 Kalapis et al

The Genomic Landscape of Compensatory Evolution

Adaptive evolution is generally assumed to progress through the accumulation of beneficial mutations. However, as deleterious mutations are common in natural populations, they generate a strong selection pressure to mitigate their detrimental effects through compensatory genetic changes. This process can potentially influence directions of adaptive evolution by enabling evolutionary routes that are otherwise inaccessible. Therefore, the extent to which compensatory mutations shape genomic evolution is of central importance. Here, we studied the capacity of the baker's yeast genome to compensate the complete loss of genes during evolution, and explored the long-term consequences of this process. We initiated laboratory evolutionary experiments with over 180 haploid baker's yeast genotypes, all of which initially displayed slow growth owing to the deletion of a single gene. Compensatory evolution following gene loss was rapid and pervasive: 68% of the genotypes reached near wild-type fitness through accumulation of adaptive mutations elsewhere in the genome. As compensatory mutations have associated fitness costs, genotypes with especially low fitnesses were more likely to be subjects of compensatory evolution. Genomic analysis revealed that as compensatory mutations were generally specific to the functional defect incurred, convergent evolution at the molecular level was extremely rare. Moreover, the majority of the gene expression changes due to gene deletion remained unrestored. Accordingly, compensatory evolution promoted genomic divergence of parallel evolving populations. However, these different evolutionary outcomes are not phenotypically equivalent, as they generated diverse growth phenotypes across environments. Taken together, these results indicate that gene loss initiates adaptive genomic changes that rapidly restores fitness, but this process has substantial pleiotropic effects on cellular physiology and evolvability upon environmental change. Our work also implies that gene content variation across species could be partly due to the action of compensatory evolution rather than the passive loss of genes

Evolution of Robustness to Protein Mistranslation by Accelerated Protein Turnover

Translational errors occur at high rates, and they influence organism viability and the onset of genetic diseases. To investigate how organisms mitigate the deleterious effects of protein synthesis errors during evolution, a mutant yeast strain was engineered to translate a codon ambiguously (mistranslation). It thereby overloads the protein quality-control pathways and disrupts cellular protein homeostasis. This strain was used to study the capacity of the yeast genome to compensate the deleterious effects of protein mistranslation. Laboratory evolutionary experiments revealed that fitness loss due to mistranslation can rapidly be mitigated. Genomic analysis demonstrated that adaptation was primarily mediated by large-scale chromosomal duplication and deletion events, suggesting that errors during protein synthesis promote the evolution of genome architecture. By altering the dosages of numerous, functionally related proteins simultaneously, these genetic changes introduced large phenotypic leaps that enabled rapid adaptation to mistranslation. Evolution increased the level of tolerance to mistranslation through acceleration of ubiquitin-proteasome-mediated protein degradation and protein synthesis. As a consequence of rapid elimination of erroneous protein products, evolution reduced the extent of toxic protein aggregation in mistranslating cells. However, there was a strong evolutionary trade-off between adaptation to mistranslation and survival upon starvation: the evolved lines showed fitness defects and impaired capacity to degrade mature ribosomes upon nutrient limitation. Moreover, as a response to an enhanced energy demand of accelerated protein turnover, the evolved lines exhibited increased glucose uptake by selective duplication of hexose transporter genes. We conclude that adjustment of proteome homeostasis to mistranslation evolves rapidly, but this adaptation has several side effects on cellular physiology. Our work also indicates that translational fidelity and the ubiquitin-proteasome system are functionally linked to each other and may, therefore, co-evolve in nature

The genomic landscape of compensatory evolution.

Adaptive evolution is generally assumed to progress through the accumulation of beneficial mutations. However, as deleterious mutations are common in natural populations, they generate a strong selection pressure to mitigate their detrimental effects through compensatory genetic changes. This process can potentially influence directions of adaptive evolution by enabling evolutionary routes that are otherwise inaccessible. Therefore, the extent to which compensatory mutations shape genomic evolution is of central importance. Here, we studied the capacity of the baker's yeast genome to compensate the complete loss of genes during evolution, and explored the long-term consequences of this process. We initiated laboratory evolutionary experiments with over 180 haploid baker's yeast genotypes, all of which initially displayed slow growth owing to the deletion of a single gene. Compensatory evolution following gene loss was rapid and pervasive: 68% of the genotypes reached near wild-type fitness through accumulation of adaptive mutations elsewhere in the genome. As compensatory mutations have associated fitness costs, genotypes with especially low fitnesses were more likely to be subjects of compensatory evolution. Genomic analysis revealed that as compensatory mutations were generally specific to the functional defect incurred, convergent evolution at the molecular level was extremely rare. Moreover, the majority of the gene expression changes due to gene deletion remained unrestored. Accordingly, compensatory evolution promoted genomic divergence of parallel evolving populations. However, these different evolutionary outcomes are not phenotypically equivalent, as they generated diverse growth phenotypes across environments. Taken together, these results indicate that gene loss initiates adaptive genomic changes that rapidly restores fitness, but this process has substantial pleiotropic effects on cellular physiology and evolvability upon environmental change. Our work also implies that gene content variation across species could be partly due to the action of compensatory evolution rather than the passive loss of genes