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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

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

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

STRESS OF CHANGE. "Continual mutation also means that if you don’t use it, you lose it. For instance, many primates cannot make vitamin C, because of a gene mutation. This mutation makes no difference to animals that get plenty of vitamin C in their diet. However, when the environment changes, such loss of function can make a big difference, as one primate discovered on long sea voyages."​ https://lnkd.in/dv-JiV6 View in LinkedIn

ANCIENT PROTEINS. "The energy-converting enzymes evolved from ancestral enzymes that functioned in conditions of low O2 concentration or anaerobicity. These ancestral proteins did not have to deal with the inevitable side-reactions (leaks) that occur when O2 is present."​ https://lnkd.in/dxpcWx8 View in LinkedIn

BEYOND EVOLUTION. "A related viewpoint that I’ve heard said is that we humans have managed to extricate ourselves from the evolutionary struggle: our technological prowess has enabled us to raise ourselves above the survival of the fittest; we are, quite simply, the fittest." https://lnkd.in/dq73Az6 View in LinkedIn

THE PINNACLE. "Almost invariably in these conversations, someone expresses the opinion – as though everyone there takes it for granted – that humans are the end point, the goal, or the pinnacle of evolution." https://lnkd.in/dq73Az6 View in LinkedIn

EXAPTATION. "Recent analyses have demonstrated that neofunctionalization of paralogs from ancient polyploidy have driven a chemical arms race between plants of the Brassicales and their pierid butterfly herbivores." https://lnkd.in/e5Q_ate View in LinkedIn

VESTIGIAL STRUCTURES OF THE FOOT. "In numerous mammalian taxa one or more toes have become vestigial. In numerous others, one or more toes are lost and the associated metatarsals are reduced to a vestigial state. Locomotor changes may have provided the selective pressure that drove the evolution of vestigiality in many mammalian skeletal structures." https://lnkd.in/eMd4h72 View in LinkedIn