Origins and Evolution of the HET-s Prion-Forming Protein: Searching for Other Amyloid-Forming Solenoids
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The HET-s prion-forming domain from the filamentous fungus Podospora anserina is gaining considerable interest since it yielded the first well-defined atomic structure of a functional amyloid fibril. This structure has been identified as a left-handed beta solenoid with a triangular hydrophobic core. To delineate the origins of the HET-s prion-forming protein and to discover other amyloid-forming proteins, we searched for all homologs of the HET-s protein in a database of protein domains and fungal genomes, using a combined application of HMM, psi-blast and pGenThreader techniques, and performed a comparative evolutionary analysis of the N-terminal alpha-helical domain and the C-terminal prion-forming domain of HET-s. By assessing the tandem evolution of both domains, we observed that the prion-forming domain is restricted to Sordariomycetes, with a marginal additional sequence homolog in Arthroderma otae as a likely case of horizontal transfer. This suggests innovation and rapid evolution of the solenoid fold in the Sordariomycetes clade. In contrast, the N-terminal domain evolves at a slower rate (in Sordariomycetes) and spans many diverse clades of fungi. We performed a full three-dimensional protein threading analysis on all identified HET-s homologs against the HET-s solenoid fold, and present detailed structural annotations for identified structural homologs to the prion-forming domain. An analysis of the physicochemical characteristics in our set of structural models indicates that the HET-s solenoid shape can be readily adopted in these homologs, but that they are all less optimized for fibril formation than the P. anserina HET-s sequence itself, due chiefly to the presence of fewer asparagine ladders and salt bridges. Our combined structural and evolutionary analysis suggests that the HET-s shape has "limited scope" for amyloidosis across the wider protein universe, compared to the 'generic' left-handed beta helix. We discuss the implications of our findings on future identification of amyloid-forming proteins sharing the solenoid fold.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".