ArticlemBio2010
Economical evolution: microbes reduce the synthetic cost of extracellular proteins.
Article in mBio, 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 69 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
69 citing papers in PubMed, 111 citations in OpenAlex.
- AnResearch square · 2026Article
- Synthetic Biology of Plants and Microbes for Agriculture, Environment, and Future Applications.Chemical reviews · 2026Review
- α-Amylase in Aspergillus oryzae-fermented rice promotes the growth of human symbiotic Faecalibacterium Prausnitzii.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- ROS-induced allosteric modulation of NikR promotesVirulence · 2025Article
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- Cell Geometry Limits Bacterial Metabolic Efficiency.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Bioenergetics and the Evolution of Cellular Traits.Annual review of biophysics · 2025Review
- A novel regulation on the developmental checkpoint protein Sda that controls sporulation and biofilm formation inJournal of bacteriology · 2025Article
- Medicinal Plant Microbiomes: Factors Affecting Bacterial and Fungal Community Composition.Planta medica · 2024Article
- Saccharibacteria deploy two distinct Type IV pili, driving episymbiosis, host competition, and twitching motility.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Cellular location shapes quaternary structure of enzymes.Nature communications · 2024Article
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- Advances in cellular and molecular predatory biology ofFrontiers in microbiology · 2023Review
- Heme cross-feeding can augment Staphylococcus aureus and Enterococcus faecalis dual species biofilms.The ISME journal · 2022Article
- Role of the flagellar hook in the structural development and antibiotic tolerance of Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms.The ISME journal · 2022Article
- Insights into the Antibacterial Mechanism of Action of Chelating Agents by Selective Deprivation of Iron, Manganese, and Zinc.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2022Article
- The impact of PrsA over-expression on theFrontiers in microbiology · 2022Article
- A holistic framework integrating plant-microbe-mineral regulation of soil bioavailable nitrogen.Biogeochemistry · 2021Article
- Flagellation of Shewanella oneidensis Impacts Bacterial Fitness in Different Environments.Current microbiology · 2020Article
- The ecology of heterogeneity: soil bacterial communities and C dynamics.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Article
9 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Protein evolution is not simply a race toward improved function. Because organisms compete for limited resources, fitness is also affected by the relative economy of an organism's proteome. Indeed, many abundant proteins contain relatively high percentages of amino acids that are metabolically less taxing for the cell to make, thus reducing cellular cost. However, not all abundant proteins are economical, and many economical proteins are not particularly abundant. Here we examined protein composition and found that the relative synthetic cost of amino acids constrains the composition of microbial extracellular proteins. In Escherichia coli, extracellular proteins contain, on average, fewer energetically expensive amino acids independent of their abundance, length, function, or structure. Economic pressures have strategically shaped the amino acid composition of multicomponent surface appendages, such as flagella, curli, and type I pili, and extracellular enzymes, including type III effector proteins and secreted serine proteases. Furthermore, in silico analysis of Pseudomonas syringae, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and over 25 other microbes spanning a wide range of GC content revealed a broad bias toward more economical amino acids in extracellular proteins. The synthesis of any protein, especially those rich in expensive aromatic amino acids, represents a significant investment. Because extracellular proteins are lost to the environment and not recycled like other cellular proteins, they present a greater burden on the cell, as their amino acids cannot be reutilized during translation. We hypothesize that evolution has optimized extracellular proteins to reduce their synthetic burden on the cell.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.