Evolutionary variance analysis of the Glycoside Hydrolase Family 13: Structural evidence in classification and evolution

The Glycoside Hydrolase Family 13 (GH13) is both evolutionary diverse and relevant to many industrial applications. Its members perform the hydrolysis of starch into smaller carbohydrates. Members of the family have been bioengineered to improve catalytic function under industrial environments. We introduce a framework to analyze the response to selection of GH13 protein structures given some phylogenetic and simulated dynamic information. We found that the TIM-barrel is not selectable since it is under purifying selection. We also show a method to rank important residues with higher inferred response to selection. These residues can be altered to effect change in properties. In this work, we define fitness as inferred thermodynamic stability. We show that under the developed framework, residues 112Y, 122K, 124D, 125W, and 126P are good candidates to increase the stability of the truncated protein 4E2O. Overall, this paper demonstrate the feasibility of a framework for the analysis of protein structures for any other fitness landscape.