peptides tagged posts

An experiment in recreating primordial proteins solves a long-standing riddle. What did the very first proteins look like — those that appeared on Earth around 3.7 billion years ago? Prof. Dan Tawfik of the Weizmann Institute of Science and Prof. Norman Metanis of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have reconstructed protein sequences that may well resemble those ancestors of modern proteins, and their research suggests a way that these primitive proteins could have progressed to forming living cells. Their findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The proteins encoded in a cell’s genet...

A top view of GrBP5 nanowires on a 2-D surface of graphene. Credit: Mehmet Sarikaya/Scientific Reports

A solution lies in bridging this gap where artificial meets biological – harnessing biological rules to exchange information between the biochemistry of our bodies and the chemistry of our devices. Engineers at the University of Washington unveil peptides that can provide just such a link. The team, led by UW professor Mehmet Sarikaya in the Departments of Materials Science & Engineering, shows how a genetically engineered peptide can assemble into nanowires atop 2D, solid surfaces that are just a single layer of atoms thick...

C/2006 P1 Comet McNaught, the ‘Great Comet of 2007′, as seen from Swift’s Creek, Victoria, Australia on 23 January 2007. Image credit: Fir0002 / Flagstaffotos / Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 3.0.

Substantial synthesis of peptides – the first building blocks of life may have been driven by comet impacts. Dr Sugahara from JAMSTEC in Yokahama, and Dr Koichi Mimura, from Nagoya University performed a series of experiments to mimic the conditions of comet impacts on the Early Earth at the time when life first appeared, around 4 billion years ago.

They took frozen mixtures of amino acid, water ice and silicate (forsterite) at cryogenic condition (77 K), and used a propellant gun to simulate the shock of a comet impact...