Sequence, Structure and Functional space ofDrosophila de novoproteins

Abstract

AbstractDuringde novoemergence, new protein coding genes emerge from previously non-genic sequences. Thede novoproteins they encode are dissimilar in composition and predicted biochemical properties to conserved proteins. However, many functionalde novoproteins indeed exist. Both identification of functionalde novoproteins and their structural characterisation are experimentally laborious. To identify functional and structuredde novoproteinsin silico, we applied recently developed machine learning based tools and refined the results forde novoproteins. We found that mostde novoproteins are indeed different from conserved proteins both in their structure and sequence. However, somede novoproteins are predicted to adopt known protein folds, participate in cellular reactions, and to form biomolecular condensates. Apart from broadening our understanding ofde novoprotein evolution, our study also provides a large set of testable hypotheses for focused experimental studies on structure and function ofde novoproteins inDrosophila.