title: Protein architecture chronology deduced from structures of amino acid synthases.
abstract: Inferring the protein architecture chronology is one of central topics in origin of life study and has been given much attention. Based on an amino acid evolutionary model that late amino acids were bio-synthesized prior to early counterparts, we addressed the issue by examining the structures of amino acid synthases. Despite the limited structural information on amino acid synthases, our deduction revealed that alpha/beta was the oldest protein class, which is in good agreement with the prior fold-usage-based conclusion.
authors.affiliation: Shandong Provincial Research Center for Bioinformatic Engineering and Technique, Center for Advanced Study, Shandong University of Technology, Zibo 255049, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Hong-Fang
authors.initials: HF
authors.lastname: Ji
authors.forename: Hong-Yu
authors.initials: HY
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000596:Amino Acids / Q000096:biosynthesis*; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry*; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid
chemical_list: D000596:Amino Acids; D011506:Proteins