A web server for identification and analysis of coevolution in overlapping proteins

Abstract

Overlapping genes exist in all domains of life and are especially abundant in viral genomes. The existence of overlapping reading frames increases the rising of deleterious mutations for one of the proteins, since a single nucleotide substitution may affect both proteins. Molecular coevolution may be seen as a mechanism to tolerate or compensate unfavorable mutations, decreasing the evolutionary constraints in the overlapping region. For instance, a favorable mutation in one reading frame may be unfavorable in the other reading frame and additional mutations may be needed to compensate the first mutation. Although molecular coevolution was widely used in viral genomes, the "overlap problem" was disregarded. Here, we present a server that facilitates the analysis of coevolution in overlapping proteins and of the impact of mutations in another ORF.