The Drosophila toothrin Gene Related to the d4 Family Genes: An Evolutionary View on Origin and Function
Elena E Kuvaeva, Roman O Cherezov, Dina A Kulikova, Ilya B Mertsalov, Efthimios M C Skoulakis · 2024
Read The Drosophila toothrin Gene Related to the d4 Family Genes: An Evolutionary View on Origin and Function by Elena E Kuvaeva, Roman O Cherezov, Dina A Kulikova, Ilya B Mertsalov, Efthimios M C Skoulakis (2024) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-11678306.txt.
Description
Elena Kuvaeva and co-authors reconstruct how a fruit fly gene lost pieces of its ancestral toolkit, and what that loss means across evolution. Their 2024 study concerns the d4 gene family, whose proteins help steer development and cell fate in many animals. Mammals carry three family members with a full three-part domain structure; the fly carries two relatives, each missing parts.
One fly protein keeps only the first domain. Tracing gene copies across insect and vertebrate lineages, the authors found duplications in flies and repeated, independent specialization elsewhere. Mammals even make a shortened splice form resembling the fly's stripped protein. They propose that producing such partial proteins is a recurring evolutionary move, not a defect. The fly gene, toothrin, may act like that mammalian short form. The study turns an oddity of fly genetics into a general lesson: evolution edits proteins by subtraction as readily as by addition.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Elena E Kuvaeva, Roman O Cherezov, Dina A Kulikova, Ilya B Mertsalov, Efthimios M C Skoulakis |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2024 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 87 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |