Evolutionary Reconstruction and Population Genetics Analysis of Aurora Kinases

BACKGROUND: Aurora kinases belong to the highly conserved kinase family and play a vital role in cell cycle regulation. The structure and function of these kinases are inter-related and sometimes they also act as substitutes in case of knockdown of other aurora kinases. METHOD: In this work we carried out the evolutionary reconstruction and population genetic studies of aurora kinase proteins. Substitution saturation test, CAI (Codon adaptation index), gene expression and RSCU (Relative synonymous codon usage) values were computed for all the three aurora kinases. Linear regression method was used to check the dependency of gene expression on their CAI values. RESULTS: The results suggested that aurora-B and aurora-C has shown convergence in their evolutionary pathway. Moreover, the aurora-A I57V mutation showed high penetrance in human population and exist at very high frequency (84.4%) when compared to the native residue (15.6%). The mutation showed notable range of functional gain and seemed to be promising for the evolution of aurora-A function. Mutant allele might also become a challenging prospect for understanding the pattern of evolution followed by cell cycle kinases. CONCLUSION: The overall result suggested that the aurora-A is currently under the evolutionary transition and to determine the functional significance of the mutation further investigation are required.