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Molecular Evolution of hisB Genes

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Abstract

The sixth and eighth steps of histidine biosynthesis are catalyzed by an imidazole glycerol-phosphate (IGP) dehydratase (EC 4.2.1.19) and by a histidinol-phosphate (HOL-P) phosphatase (EC 3.1.3.15), respectively. In the enterobacteria, in Campylobacter jejuni and in Xylella/Xanthomonas the two activities are associated with a single bifunctional polypeptide encoded by hisB. On the other hand, in Archaea, Eucarya, and most Bacteria the two activities are encoded by two separate genes. In this work we report a comparative analysis of the amino acid sequence of all the available HisB proteins, which allowed us to depict a likely evolutionary pathway leading to the present-day bifunctional hisB gene. According to the model that we propose, the bifunctional hisB gene is the result of a fusion event between two independent cistrons joined by domain-shuffling. The fusion event occurred recently in evolution, very likely in the proteobacterial lineage after the separation of the γ- and the β-subdivisions. Data obtained in this work established that a paralogous duplication event of an ancestral DDDD phosphatase encoding gene originated both the HOL-P phosphatase moiety of the E. coli hisB gene and the gmhB gene coding for a DDDD phosphatase, which is involved in the biosynthesis of a precursor of the inner core of the outer membrane lipopolysaccharides (LPS).

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Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions on improving the manuscript.

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  1. Dipartimento di Biologia Animale e Genetica, Via Romana 17-19, 1-50125, Firenze, Italy

    Matteo Brilli & Renato Fani

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  1. Matteo Brilli
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Correspondence to Renato Fani.

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Brilli, M., Fani, R. Molecular Evolution of hisB Genes . J Mol Evol 58, 225–237 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00239-003-2547-x

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