These “Junk” Proteins May Fuel Adaptation

And they could help some creatures adjust to changing climates

Originally published by Sofia Quaglia, at nautil.us, on July 30, 202


Cell biologist Amy Gladfelter recently set out to solve a riddle that concerns one of the most fundamental features of evolution: adaptation. After a decade of study, she had noticed that one of her favorite fungi, Ashbya gossypii, thrives in a wide variety of environments, from the tropics of Trinidad to the often frigid plains of Wisconsin. How, she began to wonder, did the simple filamentous fungus, with its tiny genome and simple lifecycle, evolve such versatility—and how did the beach-town strains differ from the cold-adapted ones?

Gladfelter decided to tinker with Ashbya gossypii’s genetic code to see what she could find out. In her laboratory at Duke University School of Medicine, she and her team sifted through 70 strains of the fungus and started methodically swapping proteins in its DNA. In particular, they focused on a protein called Whi3, famous for being a little unpredictable. Instead of locking into a specific position inside a cell or maintaining a single three-dimensional shape, like most proteins, Whi3 is messier and more chaotic: It migrates from one part of the cell to another depending on cellular conditions, and its amino acid sequences are unstable, tending to feature repeats and substitutions.

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