Conserved Cdk inhibitors show unique structural responses to tyrosine phosphorylation.

Balanced proliferation-quiescence decisions are vital during normal development and in tissue homeostasis, and their dysregulation underlies tumorigenesis. Entry into proliferative cycles is driven by Cyclin/Cyclin-dependent kinases (Cdks). Conserved Cdk inhibitors (CKIs) p21Cip1/Waf1, p27Kip1, and p57Kip2 bind to Cyclin/Cdks and inhibit Cdk activity. p27 tyrosine phosphorylation, in response to mitogenic signaling, promotes activation of CyclinD/Cdk4 and CyclinA/Cdk2. Tyrosine phosphorylation is conserved in p21 and p57, although the number of sites differs. We use molecular-dynamics simulations to compare the structural changes in Cyclin/Cdk/CKI trimers induced by single and multiple tyrosine phosphorylation in CKIs and their impact on CyclinD/Cdk4 and CyclinA/Cdk2 activity. Despite shared structural features, CKI binding induces distinct structural responses in Cyclin/Cdks and the predicted effects of CKI tyrosine phosphorylation on Cdk activity are not conserved across CKIs. Our analyses suggest how CKIs may have evolved to be sensitive to different inputs to give context-dependent control of Cdk activity.

Fitness landscape of a dynamic RNA structure.

RNA structures are dynamic. As a consequence, mutational effects can be hard to rationalize with reference to a single static native structure. We reasoned that deep mutational scanning experiments, which couple molecular function to fitness, should capture mutational effects across multiple conformational states simultaneously. Here, we provide a proof-of-principle that this is indeed the case, using the self-splicing group I intron from Tetrahymena thermophila as a model system. We comprehensively mutagenized two 4-bp segments of the intron. These segments first come together to form the P1 extension (P1ex) helix at the 5' splice site. Following cleavage at the 5' splice site, the two halves of the helix dissociate to allow formation of an alternative helix (P10) at the 3' splice site. Using an in vivo reporter system that couples splicing activity to fitness in E. coli, we demonstrate that fitness is driven jointly by constraints on P1ex and P10 formation. We further show that patterns of epistasis can be used to infer the presence of intramolecular pleiotropy. Using a machine learning approach that allows quantification of mutational effects in a genotype-specific manner, we demonstrate that the fitness landscape can be deconvoluted to implicate P1ex or P10 as the effective genetic background in which molecular fitness is compromised or enhanced. Our results highlight deep mutational scanning as a tool to study alternative conformational states, with the capacity to provide critical insights into the structure, evolution and evolvability of RNAs as dynamic ensembles. Our findings also suggest that, in the future, deep mutational scanning approaches might help reverse-engineer multiple alternative or successive conformations from a single fitness landscape.

Histone variants in archaea and the evolution of combinatorial chromatin complexity.

Nucleosomes in eukaryotes act as platforms for the dynamic integration of epigenetic information. Posttranslational modifications are reversibly added or removed and core histones exchanged for paralogous variants, in concert with changing demands on transcription and genome accessibility. Histones are also common in archaea. Their role in genome regulation, however, and the capacity of individual paralogs to assemble into histone-DNA complexes with distinct properties remain poorly understood. Here, we combine structural modeling with phylogenetic analysis to shed light on archaeal histone paralogs, their evolutionary history, and capacity to generate combinatorial chromatin states through hetero-oligomeric assembly. Focusing on the human commensal Methanosphaera stadtmanae as a model archaeal system, we show that the heteromeric complexes that can be assembled from its seven histone paralogs vary substantially in DNA binding affinity and tetramer stability. Using molecular dynamics simulations, we go on to identify unique paralogs in M. stadtmanae and Methanobrevibacter smithii that are characterized by unstable interfaces between dimers. We propose that these paralogs act as capstones that prevent stable tetramer formation and extension into longer oligomers characteristic of model archaeal histones. Importantly, we provide evidence from phylogeny and genome architecture that these capstones, as well as other paralogs in the Methanobacteriales, have been maintained for hundreds of millions of years following ancient duplication events. Taken together, our findings indicate that at least some archaeal histone paralogs have evolved to play distinct and conserved functional roles, reminiscent of eukaryotic histone variants. We conclude that combinatorially complex histone-based chromatin is not restricted to eukaryotes and likely predates their emergence.

An intestinal zinc sensor regulates food intake and developmental growth.

In cells, organs and whole organisms, nutrient sensing is key to maintaining homeostasis and adapting to a fluctuating environment1. In many animals, nutrient sensors are found within the enteroendocrine cells of the digestive system; however, less is known about nutrient sensing in their cellular siblings, the absorptive enterocytes1. Here we use a genetic screen in Drosophila melanogaster to identify Hodor, an ionotropic receptor in enterocytes that sustains larval development, particularly in nutrient-scarce conditions. Experiments in Xenopus oocytes and flies indicate that Hodor is a pH-sensitive, zinc-gated chloride channel that mediates a previously unrecognized dietary preference for zinc. Hodor controls systemic growth from a subset of enterocytes-interstitial cells-by promoting food intake and insulin/IGF signalling. Although Hodor sustains gut luminal acidity and restrains microbial loads, its effect on systemic growth results from the modulation of Tor signalling and lysosomal homeostasis within interstitial cells. Hodor-like genes are insect-specific, and may represent targets for the control of disease vectors. Indeed, CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing revealed that the single hodor orthologue in Anopheles gambiae is an essential gene. Our findings highlight the need to consider the instructive contributions of metals-and, more generally, micronutrients-to energy homeostasis.

The DNA-binding protein HTa from Thermoplasma acidophilum is an archaeal histone analog.

Histones are a principal constituent of chromatin in eukaryotes and fundamental to our understanding of eukaryotic gene regulation. In archaea, histones are widespread but not universal: several lineages have lost histone genes. What prompted or facilitated these losses and how archaea without histones organize their chromatin remains largely unknown. Here, we elucidate primary chromatin architecture in an archaeon without histones, Thermoplasma acidophilum, which harbors a HU family protein (HTa) that protects part of the genome from micrococcal nuclease digestion. Charting HTa-based chromatin architecture in vitro, in vivo and in an HTa-expressing E. coli strain, we present evidence that HTa is an archaeal histone analog. HTa preferentially binds to GC-rich sequences, exhibits invariant positioning throughout the growth cycle, and shows archaeal histone-like oligomerization behavior. Our results suggest that HTa, a DNA-binding protein of bacterial origin, has converged onto an architectural role filled by histones in other archaea.

Origins of biological function in DNA and RNA hairpin loop motifs from replica exchange molecular dynamics simulation.

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA) have remarkably similar chemical structures, but despite this, they play significantly different roles in modern biology. In this article, we explore the possible conformations of DNA and RNA hairpins to better understand the fundamental differences in structure formation and stability. We use large parallel temperature replica exchange molecular dynamics ensembles to sample the full conformational landscape of these hairpin molecules so that we can identify the stable structures formed by the hairpin sequence. Our simulations show RNA adopts a narrower distribution of folded structures compared to DNA at room temperature, which forms both hairpins and many unfolded conformations. RNA is capable of forming twice as many hydrogen bonds than DNA which results in a higher melting temperature. We see that local chemical differences lead to emergent molecular properties such as increased persistence length in RNA that is weakly temperature dependant. These discoveries provide fundamental insight into how RNA forms complex folded tertiary structures which confer enzymatic-like function in ribozymes, whereas DNA retains structural motifs in order to facilitate function such as translation of sequence.

Structure, dynamics, and function of the hammerhead ribozyme in bulk water and at a clay mineral surface from replica exchange molecular dynamics.

Compared with proteins, the relationship between structure, dynamics, and function of RNA enzymes (known as ribozymes) is far less well understood, despite the fact that ribozymes are found in many organisms and are often conceived as "molecular fossils" of the first self-replicating molecules to have arisen on Earth. To investigate how ribozymal function is governed by structure and dynamics, we study the full hammerhead ribozyme in bulk water and in an aqueous clay mineral environment by computer simulation using replica-exchange molecular dynamics. Through extensive sampling of the major conformational states of the hammerhead ribozyme, we are able to show that the hammerhead manifests a free-energy landscape reminiscent of that which is well known in proteins, exhibiting a "funnel" topology that guides the ribozyme into its globally most stable conformation. The active-site geometry is found to be closely correlated to the tertiary structure of the ribozyme, thereby reconciling conflicts between previously proposed mechanisms for the self-scission of the hammerhead. The conformational analysis also accounts for the differences reported experimentally in the catalytic activity of the hammerhead ribozyme, which is reduced when interacting with clay minerals as compared with bulk water.

Influence of surface chemistry and charge on mineral-RNA interactions.

We present the results of large-scale molecular simulations, run over several tens of nanoseconds, of 25-mer sequences of single-stranded ribonucleic acid (RNA) in bulk water and at the surface of three hydrated positively charged MgAl layered double hydroxide (LDH) minerals. The three LDHs differ in surface charge density, through varying the number of isomorphic Al substitutions. Over the course of the simulations, RNA adsorbs tightly to the LDH surface through electrostatic interactions between the charged RNA phosphate groups and the alumina charge sites present in the LDH sheet. The RNA strands arrange parallel to the surface with the base groups aligning normal to the surface and exposed to the bulk aqueous region. This templating effect makes LDH a candidate for amplifying the population of a known RNA sequence from a small number of RNAs. The structure and interactions of RNA at a positively charged, hydroxylated LDH surface were compared with those of RNA at a positively charged calcium montmorillonite surface, allowing us to establish the comparative effect of complexation and water structure at hydroxide and silicate surfaces. The systems were studied by computing radial distribution functions, atom density plots, and radii of gyration, as well as visualization. An observation pertinent to the role of these minerals in prebiotic chemistry is that, for a given charge density on the mineral surface, different genetic sequences of RNA adopt different configurations.

Theory, modelling and simulation in origins of life studies.

Origins of life studies represent an exciting and highly multidisciplinary research field. In this review we focus on the contributions made by theory, modelling and simulation to addressing fundamental issues in the domain and the advances these approaches have helped to make in the field. Theoretical approaches will continue to make a major impact at the "systems chemistry" level based on the analysis of the remarkable properties of nonlinear catalytic chemical reaction networks, which arise due to the auto-catalytic and cross-catalytic nature of so many of the putative processes associated with self-replication and self-reproduction. In this way, we describe inter alia nonlinear kinetic models of RNA replication within a primordial Darwinian soup, the origins of homochirality and homochiral polymerization. We then discuss state-of-the-art computationally-based molecular modelling techniques that are currently being deployed to investigate various scenarios relevant to the origins of life.

Clay minerals mediate folding and regioselective interactions of RNA: a large-scale atomistic simulation study.

Since a mineral-mediated origin of life was first hypothesized over 60 years ago, clays have played a significant role in origins of life studies. Such studies have hitherto rarely used computer simulation to understand the possible chemical pathways to the formation of biomolecules. We use molecular dynamics techniques, performed on supercomputing grids, to carry out large-scale simulations of various 25-mer sequences of ribonucleic acid (RNA), in bulk water and with aqueous montmorillonite clay over many tens of nanoseconds. Hitherto, there has only been limited experimental data reported for these systems. Our simulations are found to be in agreement with various experimental observations pertaining to the relative adsorption of RNA on montmorillonite in the presence of charge balancing cations. Over time scales of only a few nanoseconds, specific RNA sequences fold to characteristic secondary structural motifs, which do not form in the corresponding bulk water simulations. Our simulations also show that, in aqueous Ca(2+) environments, RNA can tether to the clay surface through a nucleotide base, leaving the 3'-end of the strand exposed, providing a mechanism for the regiospecific adsorption and elongation of RNA oligomers on clay surfaces.