ArticleMolecular biology and evolution2021
Tunicates Illuminate the Enigmatic Evolution of Chordate Metallothioneins by Gene Gains and Losses, Independent Modular Expansions, and Functional Convergences.
Article in Molecular biology and evolution, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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10 citing papers in PubMed, 12 citations in OpenAlex.
- The evolutionary history of chelicerate metallothioneins reveals de novo emergence and metal-binding specialization across the subphylum.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Myriapod Metallothioneins Conserve the Ancestral Architecture of Arthropods While Displaying Lineage-Specific Adaptations in Metal Binding.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Biological, Biochemical and Elemental Traits ofAnimals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Article
- Experimental recombining of repetitive motifs leads to large functional metallothioneins and demonstrates their modular evolvability potential.Protein science : a publication of the Protein Society · 2025Article
- Metals and metallothionein evolution in snails: a contribution to the concept of metal-specific functionality from an animal model group.Biometals : an international journal on the role of metal ions in biology, biochemistry, and medicine · 2024Review
- Evolution of Cd2+ and Cu+ binding in Helix pomatia metallothioneins.Metallomics : integrated biometal science · 2023Article
- The Modular Architecture of Metallothioneins Facilitates Domain Rearrangements and Contributes to Their Evolvability in Metal-Accumulating Mollusks.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Article
- Parallel Evolution of Ameloblastic scpp Genes in Bony and Cartilaginous Vertebrates.Molecular biology and evolution · 2022Article
- Metal-Specificity Divergence between Metallothioneins ofInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2021Article
- Modular Evolution and Population Variability ofFrontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
To investigate novel patterns and processes of protein evolution, we have focused in the metallothioneins (MTs), a singular group of metal-binding, cysteine-rich proteins that, due to their high degree of sequence diversity, still represents a "black hole" in Evolutionary Biology. We have identified and analyzed more than 160 new MTs in nonvertebrate chordates (especially in 37 species of ascidians, 4 thaliaceans, and 3 appendicularians) showing that prototypic tunicate MTs are mono-modular proteins with a pervasive preference for cadmium ions, whereas vertebrate and cephalochordate MTs are bimodular proteins with diverse metal preferences. These structural and functional differences imply a complex evolutionary history of chordate MTs-including de novo emergence of genes and domains, processes of convergent evolution, events of gene gains and losses, and recurrent amplifications of functional domains-that would stand for an unprecedented case in the field of protein evolution.
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