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Public Library of Science, PLoS ONE, 7(7), p. e40125, 2012

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0040125

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Moonlighting Peptides with Emerging Function

Journal article published in 2012 by Jonathan G. Rodríguez Plaza, Amanda Villalón Rojas, Amanda Villalón Rojas, Sur Herrera ORCID, Georgina Garza-Ramos, Alfredo Torres Larios ORCID, Georgina Garza Ramos, Carlos Amero, Gabriela Zarraga Granados, Alfredo Torres Larios, Gabriela Zarraga Granados, Manuel Gutiérrez Aguilar ORCID, Manuel Gutierrez Aguilar, María Teresa Lara Ortiz, Carlos Polanco Gonzalez and other authors.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

Hunter-killer peptides combine two activities in a single polypeptide that work in an independent fashion like many other multi-functional, multi-domain proteins. We hypothesize that emergent functions may result from the combination of two or more activities in a single protein domain and that could be a mechanism selected in nature to form moonlighting proteins. We designed moonlighting peptides using the two mechanisms proposed to be involved in the evolution of such molecules (i.e., to mutate non-functional residues and the use of natively unfolded peptides). We observed that our moonlighting peptides exhibited two activities that together rendered a new function that induces cell death in yeast. Thus, we propose that moonlighting in proteins promotes emergent properties providing a further level of complexity in living organisms so far unappreciated.