Pseudogene repair driven by selection pressure applied in experimental evolution

• DOI: 10.1038/s41564-018-0340-2
• Publication Date: 2019-01-28T17:03:58Z
• Authors: Amitesh Anand; Connor A. Olson; Laurence Yang; Anand V. Sastry; Edward Catoiu; Kumari Sonal Chou...; Patrick V. Phaneuf; Troy E. Sandberg; Sibei Xu; Ying Hefner; Richard Szubin; Adam M. Feist; Bernhard O. Palsson
• Keywords: 0303 health sciences; Escherichia coli Proteins; Iron; DNA Mismatch Repair; 3. Good health; Evolution, Molecular; Open Reading Frames; 03 medical and health sciences; Escherichia coli; Directed Molecular Evolution; Selection, Genetic; Cation Transport Proteins; Phylogeny; Pseudogenes

Pseudogenes represent open reading frames that have been damaged by mutations, rendering the gene product non-functional. Pseudogenes are found in many genomes and are not always eliminated, even if they are potentially 'wasteful'. This raises a fundamental question about their prevalence. Here we report pseudogene efeU repair that restores the iron uptake system of Escherichia coli under a designed selection pressure during adaptive laboratory evolution.