3 ms·
Who knows what kinds of selective pressure this section of the genome has been exposed to? Probably none. You would be hard pressed to conjure up a reason to e
by falsestprophet 17y ago
Who knows what kinds of selective pressure this section of the genome has been exposed to?
Probably none. You would be hard pressed to conjure up a reason to explain why a sequence that codes for a non-functional protein would be functionally conserved for 7 million years. (You could win a Nobel prize for such a revolutionary contribution.)
I work in drug design. Let me assure you that even a single mutation can render the structure of a protein completely inert.
- mbreese 17y agoThere is also no reason why it wouldn't be conserved... perhaps it's in a highly conversed region? Without looking up exactly where it is in the genome, I wouldn't speculate. I'd be more interested in knowing how the sequences compared to chimp or orangutan. I'm fully aware that a single mutation can render a protein inert. However, a different mutation might not have any effect. In this case, the mRNA is expressed as a pseudo-gene, so that's a good sign. The mutation is a nonsense truncation. With that problem 'fixed' and with a correctly translated protein, this protein might still work.