Studying 4-Billion-Year-Old Fossil Proteins

Modern proteins exhibit an impressive degree of structural diversity, which has been well characterized, but very little is known about how and when over the course of evolution 3D protein structures arose.

In a study published by Cell Press August 8 in Structure, researchers resurrected 4-billion-year-old Precambrian proteins in the laboratory and gained novel insights into protein evolution by analyzing their X-ray crystal structures. This method has revealed a remarkable degree of structural similarity among proteins since life first evolved on this planet, and it represents a powerful and novel approach to explore the evolution of protein structures.