Pure Pedantry : God makes DNA replication suspiciously evolutionary, tricks me again

Reality is always more complicated than you think.

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Jake Young is a MD/PhD student at Mount Sinai School of Medicine focusing in Neuroscience. He is due to graduate in 2032. He received a BS and a MS in Biological Sciences from Stanford University -- where he spent most of his time drinking heavily and building vegetable catapults instead of learning information that would now be eminently useful. When he is not failing terrifically to perform his sworn duties, he enjoys watching bad movies, ethnic food, and running.

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God makes DNA replication suspiciously evolutionary, tricks me again

Category: Evolution
Posted on: July 18, 2006 12:01 AM, by Jake Young

God is so tricky. New research reveals that the structure of a DNA replication molecule is similar across all three domains of life:

In two papers that will be concurrently published in the August edition of the journal Nature Structural and Molecular Biology (now available on-line), the researchers report the identification of a helical substructure within a superfamily of proteins, called AAA+, as the molecular "initiator" of DNA replication in a bacteria, Escherichia coli (E. coli), and in a eukaryote, Drosophila melanogaster, the fruit fly. Taken with earlier research that identified AAA+ proteins at the heart of the DNA replication initiator in archaea organisms, these new findings indicate that DNA replication is an ancient event that evolved millions of years ago, prior to when Archae, Bacteria and Eukarya split into separate domains of life.

...
Biochemist and structural biologist James Berger, a participant in both studies added, "Our findings of evolutionary kinship between the DNA initiators in all three domains make sense because, to paraphrase Francois Jacob, the one thing a cell wants to do is to become two cells. A cell can't do this if it doesn't replicate its DNA in the right place, at the right time, and in the right manner, while simultaneously avoiding over-replication." (Emphasis mine.)

See you would think that he would like me to conclude that the similarities of between three domains of life are because they evolved from a common origin, but actually he planned it that way just to play with me. This joke has been like 3 billion years in the making.

God...you so crazy!

The articles in Nature Structural Biology are here and here.

Comments

Ah, you misunderestimate your enemy. Don't you see? If the same mechanism is used by multiple branches of the tree of life it makes it that much more improbably that they evolved. After all, how could such a mechanism spontaneously leap into existence? What could have existed before the fully competent machinery? It's too complicated to be understood! Quick, shield your brain!

Posted by: quitter | July 18, 2006 12:46 AM