Findings may be useful in design of future drugs and
catalysts
The theory of evolution suggests that present-day organisms
evolved from earlier life forms.
At the molecular level, evolution reshaped some of the
enzymes that help complete chemical processes—such as converting food into
energy—in humans and all other life forms.
Now a University of Iowa researcher and his colleagues
describe the evolution of various forms of the enzyme “dihydrofolate reductase”
as it occurred from bacteria to humans. Their paper, “Preservation of Protein
Dynamics in Dihydrofolate Reductase Evolution,” appears in the Dec. 13 issue of
the Journal of Biological Chemistry.