Phylogenetic analysis of sequences from diverse bacteria with homology to the Escherichia coli rho gene

Abstract

Genes from Pseudomonas fluorescens, Chromatium vinosum, Micrococcus luteus, Deinococcus radiodurans, and Thermotoga maritima with homology to the Escherichia coli rho gene were cloned and sequenced, and their sequences were compared with other available sequences. The species for all of the compared sequences are members of five bacterial phyla, including Thermotogales, the most deeply diverged phylum. This suggests that a rho-like gene is ubiquitous in the Bacteria and was present in their common ancestor. The comparative analysis revealed that the Rho homologs are highly conserved, exhibiting a minimum identity of 50% of their amino acid residues in pairwise comparisons. The ATP-binding domain had a particularly high degree of conservation, consisting of some blocks with sequences of residues that are very similar to segments of the alpha and beta subunits of F1-ATPase and of other blocks with sequences that are unique to Rho. The RNA-binding domain is more diverged than the ATP-binding domain. However, one of its most highly conserved segments includes a RNP1-like sequence, which is known to be involved in RNA binding. Overall, the degree of similarity is lowest in the first 50 residues (the first half of the RNA-binding domain), in the putative connector region between the RNA-binding and the ATP-binding domains, and in the last 50 residues of the polypeptide. Since functionally defective mutants for E. coli Rho exist in all three of these segments, they represent important parts of Rho that have undergone adaptive evolution.