Abstract
Dissimilatory sulfite reductase is an ancient enzyme that has linked the
global sulfur and carbon biogeochemical cycles since at least 3.47 Gya.
While much has been learned about the phylogenetic distribution and
diversity of DsrAB across environmental gradients, far less is known
about the structural changes that occurred to maintain DsrAB function as
the enzyme accompanied diversification of sulfate/sulfite reducing
organisms (SRO) into new environments. Analyses of available crystal
structures of DsrAB from Archaeoglobus fulgidus and
Desulfovibrio vulgaris, representing early and late evolving
lineages, respectively, show that certain features of DsrAB are
structurally conserved, including active siro-heme binding motifs.
Whether such structural features are conserved among DsrAB recovered
from varied environments, including hot spring environments that host
representatives of the earliest evolving SRO lineage (e.g., MV2-Eury),
is not known. To begin to overcome these gaps in our understanding of
the evolution of DsrAB, structural models from MV2.Eury were generated
and evolutionary sequence co-variance analyses were conducted on a
curated DsrAB database. Phylogenetically diverse DsrAB harbor many
conserved functional residues including those that ligate active
siro-heme(s). However, evolutionary co-variance analysis of monomeric
DsrAB subunits revealed several False Positive Evolutionary Couplings
(FPEC) that correspond to residues that have co-evolved despite being
too spatially distant in the monomeric structure to allow for direct
contact. One set of FPECs corresponds to residues that form a structural
path between the two active siro-heme moieties across the interface
between heterodimers, suggesting the potential for allostery or electron
transfer within the enzyme complex. Other FPECs correspond to structural
loops and gaps that may have been selected to stabilize enzyme function
in different environments. These structural bioinformatics results
suggest that DsrAB has maintained allosteric communication pathways
between subunits as SRO diversified into new environments. The
observations outlined here provide a framework for future biochemical
and structural analyses of DsrAB to examine potential allosteric control
of this enzyme.