Proteins and Taxonomy

Abstract

Since the amino acid sequences of proteins are encoded by the nucleotide sequences of a cell’s DNA, variation in protein structure between organisms effectively provides a window into the cell’s genome, and for many years provided one of the simplest means of obtaining information directly about gene sequences. However, proteins are complex molecules, and study of the amino acid sequences that make them up was until quite recently a difficult lengthy and costly procedure. Much of the usefulness of proteins in taxonomic investigations has been the result of investigations that compare the physical properties of particular proteins rather than working out their amino acid sequences. Paramount among the procedures employed for investigating proteins are a number of techniques generally referred to as electrophoresis several variants of which are described briefly below.

ArticleNote

Almost as soon as macromolecules were sequenced, predictions were made that the sequences contained information about evolutionary history ...

Penny and Hendy (1985)