A protective protein that can detect newly-made incomplete and hence potentially toxic protein chains in higher cells is found to have a relative in bacteria. There, the protein also plays a central role in quality control which ensures that defective proteins are degraded. The functional mechanism of these evolutionarily related Rqc2 proteins thus acts as key quality control component and must therefore have already existed several billion years ago in the so-called last universal common ancestor. Scientists at the Center for Molecular Biology of Heidelberg University (ZMBH) have reached this conclusion based on their experimental study of the function of the bacterial Rqc2 relative.
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Source: Phys.org