Path to Diversity and to Resistant Uniformity: Intracellular Adaptation to Nutrient Environment

Abstract

Two adaptation strategies are known, which provide variability and resistance of population. We study the laws of adaptation by the example of proteins and changes in their conformations. The data were obtained in the experiments of V.I. Korogodin on yeast cells with mutations, which have demonstrated the effect of the culture medium on the appearance frequency of pseudo-wild type cells. Here, these archived and published data are analyzed by the statistical approach. Statistical analysis shows the emergence of a sequence of independent foci of the pseudo-wild cells induced by intracellular factor and their association with the cytosolic and nuclear-mitochondrial oxidative pathways; the foci dispersions conform the regularities of the folding energy landscape; intracellular imbalances and gene mutations affect their frequency and diversity. We conclude that the paths from diversity to uniformity of protein conformations obeys the laws of the energy landscape. The nuclear-mitochondrial machinery generates new proteins and their homogeneous foci. Variable foci consist mainly of the former conformations remodeled under ROS from several cytosolic sources. Strong gene expression induces oxidative stress, which increases the frequency of homogeneous conformations and reduces variability. Further, stress activates a new focus of new homogeneous conformations.