What's not mentioned in this lay-man summary, but is mentioned in the original article is glycosylation. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2023

What's not mentioned in this lay-man summary, but is mentioned in the original article is glycosylation. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2023.1099481/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2023.10994... Glycosylation is a post-translational modification that affects dramatic impact on protein function, especially their "stickiness." There are distinct genes which are responsible for encoding glycosyl transferases, which "decorate" the proteins after they are made. The fact that whoever wrote this article thinks these are not "glue genes" is a fallacy of composition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition The article mentions that the proteins in question are highly glycosylated and concludes "Divergence in material properties likely also involves selective gene expression, post translational protein modifications, and differences in the rates of extrusion of constituent glue proteins." Therefore, the title is click-bait.