Evolutionary Dynamic of IDRs in Transcription Factors and their Contribution to Multicellularity

Speaker: Senior Scientist Inmaculada Yruela, Group of Computational and Structural Biology, EEAD-CSIC, Spain
Host: Professor Birthe Brandt Kragelund, Section for Biomolecular Sciences

Ductile / intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) and regions (IDRs) are found in all organisms, are essential for basic cellular functions, and complement the function of rigid proteins. Computational studies of diverse phylogenetic lineages reveal that IDPs and IDRs increase in concert with organismic complexity and multicellularity. In particular, an unbiased and phylogenetically broad analysis shows evidence for a positive and strong correlation between the fraction of IDRs in transcription factors (TFs) and organismic complexity, measured by cell-type number. The correlation between the fraction of IDRs and cell-type number becomes stronger when focus to the TF families participating in cell cycle, cell size, cell division, cell differentiation, or cell proliferation, and other important developmental processes in plants. Additionally, our data indicate that evolutionarily simpler photosynthetic organisms allow for the detection of subtle differences in the conserved IDRs of TFs as well as changes in variable IDRs, which can influence the DNA recognition and multifunctionality of TFs through direct or indirect mechanisms. We will also discuss the evolutionary consequences of gene duplication events in plants, in terms of IDRs conservation and functionality effects, particularly the implications in TF function involved in cell-type differentiation and development.