Year: 2022

MOLECULAR ADAPTATION. "Some of the key features of the bioenergetic redox enzymes can thus be understood from an evolutionary viewpoint, where enzymes that were already optimised for productive energy conversion in an anaerobic or low O2 environment had to compromise efficiency in order to survive the arrival of O2."​ https://lnkd.in/dxpcWx8 View in LinkedIn

MOLECULAR VESTIGES. "The sequences and structures of natural proteins are the results of eons of evolutionary selection. Some features of these proteins are crucial for their functions, while others are merely ‘evolutionary baggage’ that came along for the ride."​ https://lnkd.in/dn78N-j View in LinkedIn

COINCIDENTAL. "Designing proteins de novo provides an opportunity to separate the crucial from the coincidental."​ https://lnkd.in/dn78N-j View in LinkedIn

VESTIGIAL "D-dopachrome tautomerase (DDT) is an enzyme that lacks physiologic substrates in mammalian cells, but shares partial sequence and structural homology with macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF)."​ https://lnkd.in/dqk4pP3 View in LinkedIn

ARTIFICIAL SUBSTRATE. "D-dopachrome tautomerase (DDT) is an enzyme that catalyzes the tautomerization and decarboxylation of the non–naturally occurring substrate D-dopachrome to 5,6-dihydroxyindole. DDT may trace its origin to the invertebrate melanotic encapsulation response, which is a primitive immune defense against tissue invasion."​ https://lnkd.in/dqk4pP3 View in LinkedIn

MYSTERIOUS ENZYME. "There is no known physiologic substrate in mammalian species for DDT, and the protein appears to have evolved from a primitive enzymatic host defense pathway. However, DDT is present in many mammalian tissues and is highly conserved among species."​ https://lnkd.in/dqk4pP3 View in LinkedIn

ROLE IN STRESS. "Here, we observed that DDT is highly expressed in murine cardiomyocytes and secreted by the heart after ischemic stress."​ https://lnkd.in/dqk4pP3 View in LinkedIn

MESSY AND MALADADAPTIVE. "Some theorists have argued that the eukaryotic nucleus is the more primitive, burdened with inefficiencies left over from a rather messy origin of cellular life. Others, as we noted earlier, see it as replete with maladaptive genomic accumulations, which may or may not affect regulation of gene expression."​ https://lnkd.in/d6GwkCt View in LinkedIn

"EVOLUTIONARY BAGGAGE is the part of the genome of a population that was advantageous in past individuals but is disadvantageous under the pressures exerted by natural selection today."​ https://lnkd.in/dTCZavA View in LinkedIn

FIT ENOUGH. "Genes that may have been advantageous in the past may be critically unfit for individuals in today’s environment. Natural selection is not a perfect process; if an organism is “fit enough” to survive a particular environment and reproduce, its genes are passed on to the next generation. Some of these genes may increase an organism’s fitness while some may even be slightly disadvantageous."​ https://lnkd.in/dTCZavA View in LinkedIn