Researchers Map A Protein ‘Tree Of Life’ For Species Across The Animal Kingdom
Protein Homology Graph Edward Marcotte and Alex Adai/ Center for Systems and Synthetic Biology, The University of Texas at Austin The Protein Homology Graph from the University of Texas at Austin's previous work, which looked at similarities in proteins to point towards evolutionary ancestors. Proteins are a vast network of worker bees in our body, all carrying out different functions, from facilitating muscle movement to initiating thought. Roughly 20,000 unique proteins are synthesized by our genes, and work together in combination to execute complex processes--a system that has mostly stumped scientists since the mid 20th century. In a recent study published in Nature, researchers have shed some light on these protein interactions by mapping more than one million highly-predictable protein interactions across nine species, based on...