Ancient nuclear genome duplication events in vertebrates facilitated the functional diversification of ohnologous cytochrome c: insights from Buergeria frogs.

Ancient whole genome duplication in vertebrates is linked to the functional divergence of cytochrome c, with testis-type proteins showing higher resistance to hydrogen peroxide.

• Why it matters: Understanding how gene duplication events influence tissue-specific mitochondrial functions can reveal mechanisms of evolutionary adaptation and specialization in vertebrates.
• What they did: The study used synteny-based phylogenetic analyses and molecular evolution assessments on Buergeria frogs, focusing on cytochrome c ohnologs conserved for 450-540 million years, and examined structural and functional differences between somatic- and testis-type proteins.
• The result: Testis-type cytochrome c proteins with Tyr-46 residues exhibit significantly higher resistance to H2O2, and substituting Tyr-46 with Phe reduces this resistance, indicating that ancient genome duplication facilitated tissue-specific mitochondrial functional divergence.