Understanding whether and how temperature increases alter the effects of mutations on protein stability is crucial for understanding the limits to thermal adaptation by organisms. Currently, it is generally assumed that the stability effects of mutations are independent of temperature. Yet, mutations should become increasingly destabilizing as temperature rises due to the increase in the energy of atoms. Here, by performing an extensive computational analysis on the essential enzyme adenylate kinase in prokaryotes, we show, for the first time, that mutations become more destabilizing with temperature both across and within species. Consistent with these findings, we find that substitution rates of prokaryotes decrease nonlinearly with temperature. Our results suggest that life on Earth likely originated in a moderately thermophilic and thermally fluctuating environment, and indicate that global warming should decrease the per-generation rate of molecular evolution of prokaryotes.

中文翻译：

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较高的温度会恶化突变对蛋白质稳定性的影响

了解温度升高是否以及如何改变突变对蛋白质稳定性的影响对于了解生物体热适应的极限至关重要。当前，通常假设突变的稳定性效应与温度无关。然而，由于原子能的增加，随着温度升高，突变应变得越来越不稳定。在这里，通过对原核生物中必需酶腺苷酸激酶进行广泛的计算分析，我们首次证明了突变随着物种之间和物种内部的温度变得更加不稳定。与这些发现一致，我们发现原核生物的取代率随温度非线性降低。