Whence Blobs? Phylogenetics of functional protein condensates

Abstract

What do we know about the molecular evolution of functional protein condensation? The capacity of proteins to form biomolecular condensates (compact, protein-rich states, not bound by membranes, but still separated from the rest of the contents of the cell) appears in many cases to be bestowed by weak, transient interactions within one or between proteins. Natural selection is expected to remove or fix amino acid changes, insertions or deletions that preserve and change this condensation capacity when doing so is beneficial to the cell. A few recent studies have begun to explore this frontier of phylogenetics at the intersection of biophysics and cell biology.