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© COPYRIGHT 1999 Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research If similar compounds are used in all of these reactions,
Society then how do the different functions arise? The answer lies
in the specific structure of the organic component, most
Studies of a very ancient protein suggest that changes in often a protein, that houses the porphyrin ring. The
gene regulation are an important part of the evolutionary configuration of each protein determines what biochemical
story service the protein will perform.
The appearance of atmospheric oxygen on earth between Because they have such an ancient lineage, the
one and two billion years ago was a dramatic and, for the porphyrin-containing molecules provide scientists with a
primitive single-celled creatures then living on earth, a rare opportunity to follow the creation of new biological
potentially traumatic event. On the one hand, oxygen was compounds from existing ones. That is, how does an
toxic. On the other hand, oxygen presented opportunities ancestral molecule with a single function give rise to
to improve the process of metabolism, increasing the descendant molecules with varied functions? In my
efficiency of life’s energy-generating systems. Keeping laboratory, I try to answer this question through the
oxygen under control while using it in energy production comparative study of hemoglobin, the molecule in red
has been one of the great compromises struck in the blood cells that gives blood its color and that carries
evolution of life on earth. oxygen throughout the body.
The compromise was a chemical one. It appears that the Such studies are carried out by comparing the genes that
apparatus that sequesters oxygen in cells, possibly to code for the hemoglobins and their chemical relatives in a
protect them, is almost identical to the one that, in different range of organisms from bacteria to people to see how the
contexts, exploits oxygen for its energy-generating genes have changed through time. Typically research in
potential. At first this apparatus was quite primitive, molecular evolution has focused on portions of the gene
probably limited to a caged metal atom capable of binding responsible for alterations in protein structure. So it came
oxygen or tearing away its electrons, which are used in as a great surprise that the changes in hemoglobin have
metabolism. But this basic chemical apparatus grew not been merely structural. In fact, the three-dimensional
increasingly complex through time and evolution. At some structure of hemoglobin - its shape, with folds, pockets and
point the metal atom was fixed inside a kind of flat surfaces - has been fairly well conserved over the protein’s
molecular cage called a porphyrin ring, and later that evolutionary history. Rather, some of the most rapid and
porphyrin ring became embedded in larger organic dramatic changes in hemoglobin proteins have been in the
compounds called proteins. These organic compounds ways these molecules are regulated - the when and how of
themselves became increasingly varied through time and their manufacture inside the cell. The hemoglobins and
evolution. their relatives continue to evolve rapidly in subtle ways,
and the changes continue to come in the genetic
The descendants of those compounds include the regulation of the proteins.
chlorophylls and heme. Each class of compound still
contains a porphyrin ring at its center. So the basic This suggests that the creation of new protein functions
interaction between metal atom and oxygen has not arises as much from changes in regulation as from
changed. What has changed are the circumstances and changes in structure. A similar observation has recently
biochemical pathways in which these various molecules been reported for a protein important in determining the
interact. Some molecules are required to distribute oxygen body plans of vertebrates and invertebrates. A deeper
to the various organs and tissues of an organism, and understanding of the relationships among proteins - indeed
some store oxygen in a particular tissue. Some molecules an understanding of the evolutionary relationships among
participate in making oxygen, through the process of organisms - will require an analysis of changes in the
photosynthesis; others use it up in respiration. entire gene, including the regulatory portions. Informed by
this new understanding, the study of the hemoglobins and
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American Scientist March-April 1999 v87 i2 p126(1) Page 2
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