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Wnt proteins are critical signaling molecules in developmental processes across animals. Despite intense study, their evolutionary roots have remained enigmatic. Using sensitive sequence analysis and structure modeling, we establish that the Wnts are part of a vast assemblage of domains, the Lipocone superfamily, defined here for the first time. It includes previously studied enzymatic domains like the phosphatidylserine synthases (PTDSS1/2) and the TelC toxin domain from Streptococcus intermedius, the enigmatic VanZ proteins, the animal Serum Amyloid A (SAA), and a further host of uncharacterized proteins in a total of 30 families. Although the metazoan Wnts are catalytically inactive, we present evidence for a conserved active site across this superfamily, versions of which are consistently predicted to operate on head groups of either phospholipids or polyisoprenoid lipids, catalyzing transesterification and phosphate-containing head group cleavage reactions. We argue that this superfamily originated as membrane proteins, with one branch (including Wnt and SAA) evolving into diffusible versions. By comprehensively analyzing contextual information networks derived from comparative genomics, we establish that they act in varied functional contexts, including regulation of membrane lipid composition, extracellular polysaccharide biosynthesis, and biogenesis of bacterial outer-membrane components, like lipopolysaccharides. On multiple occasions, members of this superfamily, including the bacterial progenitors of Wnt and SAA, have been recruited as effectors in biological conflicts spanning inter-organismal interactions and anti-viral immunity in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. These findings establish a unifying theme in lipid biochemistry, explain the origins of Wnt signaling, and provide new leads regarding immunity across the tree of life.
Pubmed ID: 40923594
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A database of protein families, each represented by multiple sequence alignments and hidden Markov models (HMMs). Users can analyze protein sequences for Pfam matches, view Pfam family annotation and alignments, see groups of related families, look at the domain organization of a protein sequence, find the domains on a PDB structure, and query Pfam by keywords. There are two components to Pfam: Pfam-A and Pfam-B. Pfam-A entries are high quality, manually curated families that may automatically generate a supplement using the ADDA database. These automatically generated entries are called Pfam-B. Although of lower quality, Pfam-B families can be useful for identifying functionally conserved regions when no Pfam-A entries are found. Pfam also generates higher-level groupings of related families, known as clans (collections of Pfam-A entries which are related by similarity of sequence, structure or profile-HMM).
View all literature mentionsSoftware package as multiple alignment program for amino acid or nucleotide sequences. Can align up to 500 sequences or maximum file size of 1 MB. First version of MAFFT used algorithm based on progressive alignment, in which sequences were clustered with help of Fast Fourier Transform. Subsequent versions have added other algorithms and modes of operation, including options for faster alignment of large numbers of sequences, higher accuracy alignments, alignment of non-coding RNA sequences, and addition of new sequences to existing alignments.
View all literature mentionsSource code that infers approximately-maximum-likelihood phylogenetic trees from alignments of nucleotide or protein sequences. It uses the Jukes-Cantor or generalized time-reversible (GTR) models of nucleotide evolution and the JTT, WAG, or LG models of amino acid evolution.
View all literature mentionsArtificial Iinteligence chatbot that uses natural language processing to create humanlike conversational dialogue. Notable for enabling users to refine and steer conversation towards desired length, format, style, level of detail, and language used. Sibling model to InstructGPT, which is trained to follow instruction in prompt and provide detailed response.
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