Ancient Light-Sensing Proteins Revived
Researchers at the University of Osaka have developed a new methodology to reconstruct and test ancestral rhodopsin proteins. By analyzing sequence insertions and deletions, the team successfully expressed stable ancient proteins in bacteria.
Why it matters
This breakthrough provides a new tool for evolutionary biology, allowing scientists to better understand the functional history of protein families.
Osaka, Japan - Resurrecting dinosaurs using DNA retrieved from a mosquito trapped in amber is a great movie plot, though it's less likely to happen in the real world. However, researchers have been trying to unlock the secrets behind the evolution of a single protein family, to understand the evolution of ancestral proteins.
The article is a technical summary of scientific research published in a peer-reviewed journal.
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