Abstract : Moonlighting proteins are proteins that exhibit multifunctionality. It is accomplished by the recruitment of already present domains to new functions during evolution. Some functions may be due to the effect of Post Translational modifications (PTM). Glyceraldehyde -3 phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) is a highly conserved housekeeping enzyme that has multiple moonlighting functions. Along with its primary function of glycolysis, it also performs secondary moonlighting functions such as apoptosis, negative regulation of translation, and killing of cells of other organisms.
We were interested in finding how the moonlighting functions due to PTM in GAPDH evolved among different organisms.
Multiple sequence alignment (MSA) was done on GAPDH sequences retrieved from the Moonprot database, and PTMs were plotted on it. We also constructed a phylogenetic tree using the ML method. Our results suggest some motif [IL]-x-C-x-x-[DE] and associated PTM is present only in mammals, indicating that apoptotic moonlighting function may have evolved only in mammals, at a later stage.

Keywords: Moonlighting proteins, Glyceraldehyde - 3 phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), post-translational modification, Phylogenetic tree

| DOI: 10.17148/IARJSET.2022.9264