Researchers identify fragments of prehistoric proteins

MUNICH, Germany, Dec. 28 (UPI) -- Proteins are the most important biomolecules on Earth. They're essential to life as we know it, vital to our construction and performance.

"Life can be viewed as substantially resulting from the chemical activity of proteins," Andrei Lupas, director of the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Germany, explained in a press release.

But tracing the evolutionary history of proteins isn't easy.

New research, however, is offering clues as to what proteins might have looked like billions of years ago. The new research utilizes analytical models typically used to study linguistics.

By comparing and contrasting modern languages, researchers have designed models to identify ancient linguistic fragments. They can use this information to reconstruct prehistoric vocabularies. Lupas and his colleagues used the same techniques to identify primordial protein building blocks -- fragments that likely existed billions of years ago.

The new analysis located 40 peptidic fragments present in a vast array of seemingly unrelated proteins. All 40 fragments featured similar sequences and structures.

The findings support the hypothesis that the first proteins emerged approximately 3.5 billion years ago, the result of newly formed simple peptide combinations.

"If we elucidate this process, we should be able to create new protein forms," Lupas said.

The findings, published in the journal eLife, could have unique and game-changing biotechnology applications.