There are an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 proteins at work in cells, where they carry out numerable functions, says computational molecular biologist Roman Sloutsky at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “One of the central questions in all of biochemistry and molecular biology,” he adds, is how their precisely-tuned functions are determined.
There are an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 proteins at work in cells, where they carry out numerable functions, says computational molecular biologist Roman Sloutsky at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “One of the central questions in all of biochemistry and molecular biology,” he adds, is how their precisely-tuned functions are determined.
Most proteins belong to families related to each other in the same way species are, by having descended from a common ancestor, Sloutsky says. One angle scientists have taken to explore how their functions arise is to trace protein family evolution and relatedness, he notes, but reconstructing the twists and turns of past genetic divergence is very difficult.
In a paper just released in eLife, Sloutsky and his former advisor, associate professor Kristen Naegle, now at the University of Virginia, propose an unusual, new and more accurate way to trace how proteins diverged over time. “It can yield powerful insights into the relationship between protein sequence, structure and function for that family,” he says. The paper represents part of his doctoral work with Naegle at Washington University in
St. Louis.
Read more at University of Massachusetts Amherst
Image by Ulrike Leone from Pixabay
