Skip Navigation

Nucleic Acids Research 2005 33(10):3390-3400; doi:10.1093/nar/gki615
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow Print PDF (552K) Freely available
Right arrow Screen PDF (180K) Freely available
Right arrow Supplementary Material
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Search for citing articles in:
ISI Web of Science (16)
Right arrow Commercial Re-use Guidelines
for Open Access NAR Content
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Brocchieri, L.
Right arrow Articles by Karlin, S.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Brocchieri, L.
Right arrow Articles by Karlin, S.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

Published online 10 June 2005

© The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved
The online version of this article has been published under an open access model. Users are entitled to use, reproduce, disseminate, or display the open access version of this article for non-commercial purposes provided that: the original authorship is properly and fully attributed; the Journal and Oxford University Press are attributed as the original place of publication with the correct citation details given; if an article is subsequently reproduced or disseminated not in its entirety but only in part or as a derivative work this must be clearly indicated. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions{at}oupjournals.org

Article

Protein length in eukaryotic and prokaryotic proteomes

Luciano Brocchieri and Samuel Karlin*

Department of Mathematics, Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305-2125, USA

*To whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel: +1 650 723 2204; Fax: +1 650 725 2040; Email: karlin{at}math.stanford.edu

Received February 14, 2005. Revised April 14, 2005. Accepted May 5, 2005.

We analyzed length differences of eukaryotic, bacterial and archaeal proteins in relation to function, conservation and environmental factors. Comparing Eukaryotes and Prokaryotes, we found that the greater length of eukaryotic proteins is pervasive over all functional categories and involves the vast majority of protein families. The magnitude of these differences suggests that the evolution of eukaryotic proteins was influenced by processes of fusion of single-function proteins into extended multi-functional and multi-domain proteins. Comparing Bacteria and Archaea, we determined that the small but significant length difference observed between their proteins results from a combination of three factors: (i) bacterial proteomes include a greater proportion than archaeal proteomes of longer proteins involved in metabolism or cellular processes, (ii) within most functional classes, protein families unique to Bacteria are generally longer than protein families unique to Archaea and (iii) within the same protein family, homologs from Bacteria tend to be longer than the corresponding homologs from Archaea. These differences are interpreted with respect to evolutionary trends and prevailing environmental conditions within the two prokaryotic groups.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Genome ResHome page
J. Wasmuth, J. Daub, J. M. Peregrin-Alvarez, C. A.M. Finney, and J. Parkinson
The origins of apicomplexan sequence innovation
Genome Res., July 1, 2009; 19(7): 1202 - 1213.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Mol Biol EvolHome page
K. Forslund, A. Henricson, V. Hollich, and E. L. L. Sonnhammer
Domain Tree-Based Analysis of Protein Architecture Evolution
Mol. Biol. Evol., February 1, 2008; 25(2): 254 - 264.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.