A billion years in a blink: molecular machines in living organisms can remain conserved for eons

What is it about?

Over billions of years, life on Earth has flourished and adapted, evolving into every conceivable niche on our planet. The diversity resulting from evolution goes beyond what the naked eye can see: proteins, molecular machines inside cells, also change in the course of evolution or stay conserved if they fulfill a crucial function. In our study, we found that processes inside a certain type of molecular machine remain untouched for eons. This consistent pattern was identified across all investigated variants, regardless of whether they came from a human, a mouse, a chicken, a zebrafish, a shell, or a coral - even though these species are hundreds of millions of years of evolution apart.

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Photo by Immo Wegmann on Unsplash

Photo by Immo Wegmann on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The molecular machines that were investigated are essential for the survival of cells and are currently at the center of cancer research. The structure and processes inside the machines are particularly conserved because the molecules are vital for the survival of tissue-forming organisms. If their properties change only a little bit, the animal can no longer maintain its tissues and dies. The findings that the processes inside molecular machines stayed unchanged over hundreds of millions of years help to understand the effect of evolutionary processes on life.

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