The Coevolution Of Serum Response Factor (SRF)

Serum response factor (SRF) is a member of MADS (MCM1, Agamous, Defficiens and SRF) -box gene family. SRF is a highly conserved and widely expressed transcription factor in mammals. SRF, interacted with other cofactors, is on the crutial position of the protein - protein interaction network.This article is about the coevolution between the protein molecules of SRF and cofactor, and within the mRNA molecule of SRF. All of those as followings:(1) We calculated the Mutual Information of amino acid sequences of SRF and cofactors. And we combined the specific standardization method, threshold and interacting regions of SRF and cofactors with the MI result to detect all of the amino acid site pairs. Finally, we found 47 site pairs which are likely to be co-evolutionary site pairs. Through several aspects of analysis, there were 17 site pairs could be supported by the possible reason of coevolution. And the probability of these site pairs to be co-evolutionary site pairs had been improved.(2) Through splitting the whole mRNA sequence of SRF into the conservative regions and calculating the Minimum Free Energy (MFE) of the sequences in those regions, we found 164 conservative regions which are likely to produce a stable RNA secondary structure. We calculated the Mutual Information of all the mRNA sequences sites of SRF. And we combined the specific standardization method, threshold and RNA secondary structure of SRF with the MI result to detect all of the mRNA site pairs. Finally, we found 12 site pairs which are likely to be co-evolutionary site pairs. Through the analysis of the RNA secondary structure, the 12 site pairs could be supported by the possible reason of coevolution.In this article, we aim to detect the possible co-evolutionary site pairs through several bioinformatical approaches and tools, and to provide valuable reference for further research.