Journal
NATURE REVIEWS GENETICS
Volume 14, Issue 8, Pages 559-571Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/nrg3540
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Funding
- US National Institutes of Health [R01-GM081592, R01-GM104397, F32-GM090650]
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute
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The repertoire of proteins and nucleic acids in the living world is determined by evolution; their properties are determined by the laws of physics and chemistry. Explanations of these two kinds of causality - the purviews of evolutionary biology and biochemistry, respectively - are typically pursued in isolation, but many fundamental questions fall squarely at the interface of fields. Here we articulate the paradigm of evolutionary biochemistry, which aims to dissect the physical mechanisms and evolutionary processes by which biological molecules diversified and to reveal how their physical architecture facilitates and constrains their evolution. We show how an integration of evolution with biochemistry moves us towards a more complete understanding of why biological molecules have the properties that they do.
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