Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 18, 2025

Sequence-specific Labeling of Nucleic Acids and Proteins with Methyltransferases and Cofactor Analogues
Published on: November 22, 2014
Cofactors as Molecular Fossils To Trace the Origin and Evolution of Proteins
1Hubei Key Laboratory of Agricultural Bioinformatics College of Informatics, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, 430070, China.
Abstract:
Due to their early origin and extreme conservation, cofactors are valuable molecular fossils for tracing the origin and evolution of proteins. First, as the order of protein folds binding with cofactors roughly coincides with protein-fold chronology, cofactors are considered to have facilitated the origin of primitive proteins by selecting them from pools of random amino acid sequences. Second, in the subsequent evolution of proteins, cofactors still played an important role. More interestingly, as metallic cofactors evolved with geochemical variations, some geochemical events left imprints in the chronology of protein architecture; this provides further evidence supporting the coevolution of biochemistry and geochemistry. In this paper, we attempt to review the molecular fossils used in tracing the origin and evolution of proteins, with a special focus on cofactors.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Cofactors and Coenzymes
Cofactors can be metallic ions or organic molecules called coenzymes. These types of helper...
Cofactors and Coenzymes
Conserved Binding Sites
Binding sites are often located in large pockets, and if their location on a protein’s surface is unknown, it can be predicted using various approaches. The energetic method computationally...
Conservation of Protein Domains Over Different Proteins
A limited set of protein domains often duplicate and recombine during evolution. These domains can be organized in different combinations to...
The Fossil Record
Protein Families

