Conformational spread drives the evolution of the calcium-calmodulin protein kinase II

The calcium calmodulin (Ca2+/CaM) dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII) decodes Ca2+ frequency oscillations. The CaMKII alpha isoform is predominantly expressed in the brain and has a central role in learning. I matched residue and organismal evolution with collective motions deduced from the atomic structure of the human CaMKII alpha holoenzyme to learn how its ring architecture abets function. Protein dynamic simulations showed its peripheral kinase domains (KDs) are conformationally coupled via lateral spread along the central hub. The underlying beta-sheet motions in the hub or association domain (AD) were deconvolved into dynamic couplings based on mutual information. They mapped onto a coevolved residue network to partition the AD into two distinct sectors. A second, energetically stressed sector was added to ancient bacterial enzyme dimers for assembly of the ringed hub. The continued evolution of the holoenzyme after AD-KD fusion targeted the sector's ring contacts coupled to the KD. Among isoforms, the alpha isoform emerged last and, it alone, mutated rapidly after the poikilotherm-homeotherm jump to match the evolution of memory. The correlation between dynamics and evolution of the CaMKII AD argues single residue substitutions fine-tune hub conformational spread. The fine-tuning could increase CaMKII alpha Ca2+ frequency response range for complex learning functions.