Very excited to share the preprint of our collab. work with @UKY_Sunlab and Laura Banaszynski connecting glutamine metabolism and the signaling kinase that coordinates muscle stem cell fate! UKY Biology biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

1/6 Excited to share the results from our structural phylogenetic analysis of PAS domains! We discovered a surprising twist in how these environment-sensing domains fold and organize the quaternary structure of our favorite kinase, PASK.

2/6 By combining evolutionary-scale domain mapping and structural phylogenetic analysis, we uncovered a unique example of the assembly of PAS domains from two disconnected subdomains, the PAS fold (purple in the model below) and PAC (cyan) motif.

3/6 A comparison of the PASK domain architecture in the Rifleman, a passerine bird endemic to New Zealand and considered an ancestor of all passerine birds, helped reveal a unique PAS domain assembly mode.

4/6 By employing the VivoX method developed a few years ago by Ed Luk’s group (Mohan et al., eLife 2018); we could map out 3D contact points, confirming the structural analysis from AlphaFold.

5/6 Along the way, we propose a revision to the PASK domain model and its mode of catalytic activation.

6/6 Read all about it in: biorxiv.org/content/10.110…