The adaptive landscape of a metallo-enzyme is shaped by environment-dependent epistasis.

Enzymes can evolve new catalytic activity when environmental changes present them with novel substrates. Despite this seemingly straightforward relationship, factors other than the direct catalytic target can also impact adaptation. Here, we characterize the catalytic activity of a recently evolved bacterial methyl-parathion hydrolase for all possible combinations of the five functionally relevant mutations under eight different laboratory conditions (in which an alternative divalent metal is supplemented). The resultant adaptive landscapes across this historical evolutionary transition vary in terms of both the number of “fitness peaks” as well as the genotype(s) at which they are found as a result of genotype-by-environment interactions and environment-dependent epistasis. This suggests that adaptive landscapes may be fluid and molecular adaptation is highly contingent not only on obvious factors (such as catalytic targets), but also on less obvious secondary environmental factors that can direct it towards distinct outcomes. The metaphor of an adaptive landscape is presented quantitatively by looking at molecular adaptations and their catalytic consequences in a recently evolved bacterial enzyme. The study identifies both genotype-by-environment interactions and environment-dependent epistasis as factors that can alter the fitness of functional mutations.