Molecular Evolution and Adaptation Strategies in Marine Ciliates: An Inspiration for Cold-Adapted Enzyme Engineering and Drug Binding Analysis

In the present review, we summarize genome mining of genomic data obtained from the psychrophilic Antarctic marine ciliate Euplotes focardii and its evolutionary-close mesophilic cosmopolitan counterpart E. crassus. This analysis highlights adaptation strategies that are unique to the Antarctic ciliate, including antioxidant gene duplication and distinctive substitutions that may play roles in increased drug binding affinity and enzyme reaction rate in cold environments. Enzymes from psychrophiles are usually characterized by high activities and reaction rates at low temperatures compared with their counterparts from mesophiles and thermophiles. As a rule, catalyst cold activity derives from an increased structural flexibility that may lead to protein denaturation in response to temperature fluctuation. Molecular thermolability has been a major drawback of using macromolecules from psychrophiles in industrial applications. Here, we report a case study in which the role of peculiar amino acid substitution in cold adaptation is demonstrated by site-directed mutagenesis. Combined with a rational design approach, these substitutions can be used for site-directed mutagenesis to obtain cold-active catalysts that are structurally stable. Furthermore, molecular docking analysis of beta-tubulin isotypes extrapolated from E. focardii and E. crassus genomes allowed us to obtain additional insight on the taxol binding site and drug affinity. E. focardii genome mining and the comparison with the mesophilic sibling counterpart can be used as an inspiration for molecular engineering for medical and industrial applications.