Large-scale sequence similarity analysis reveals the scope of sequence and function divergence in PilZ domain proteins

PilZ domain-containing proteins constitute a superfamily of widely distributed bacterial signalling proteins. Although studies have established the canonical PilZ domain as an adaptor protein domain evolved to specifically bind the second messenger c-di-GMP, mounting evidence suggest that the PilZ domain has undergone enormous divergent evolution to generate a superfamily of proteins that are characterized by a wide range of c-di-GMP-binding affinity, binding partners and cellular functions. The divergent evolution has even generated families of non-canonical PilZ domains that completely lack c-di-GMP binding ability. In this study, we performed a large-scale sequence analysis on more than 28,000 single- and di-domain PilZ proteins using the sequence similarity networking tool created originally to analyse functionally diverse enzyme superfamilies. The sequence similarity networks (SSN) generated by the analysis feature a large number of putative isofunctional protein clusters, and thus, provide an unprecedented panoramic view of the sequence-function relationship and function diversification in PilZ proteins. Some of the protein clusters in the networks are considered as unexplored clusters that contain proteins with completely unknown biological function; whereas others contain one, two or a few functionally known proteins, and therefore, enabling us to infer the cellular function of uncharacterized homologs or orthologs. With the ultimate goal of elucidating the diverse roles played by PilZ proteins in bacterial signal transduction, the work described here will facilitate the annotation of the vast number of PilZ proteins encoded by bacterial genome and help to prioritize functionally unknown PilZ proteins for future studies.