Scientists have used resurrected proteins from the Precambrian to show that new active sites for enzyme functionality can be generated. The findings could have implications in understanding the early evolution of life on Earth, and the mechanisms for the emergence of primordial enzymes on our planet. The study also discusses how reconstructing ancestral proteins could be a valuable tool in protein engineering.

The paper, “De novo active sites for resurrected Precambrian enzymes,” was published in the journal Nature Communications. The work was supported by NASA Astrobiology through the Exobiology & Evolutionary Biology Program.