Evolutionary and Isotopic Enzymology

Are protein catalysis is an inescapable feature of biology. How did it evolve, and what traces of this evolution can we find on the Earth?

We are developing a capacity to link molecular sequence evolution to geochemical signatures of this evolution which may be found in the form of non-equilibrium isotope distributions in ancient sediments. If we're successful, we can learn about trajectories of sequence evolution through time, and the time frames of enzyme molecular evolution on the time scale of the geochemically available Earth. We can learn about enzyme mechanisms too.

Techniques used:

Isotope ratio mass spectrometry ・protein purification ・ enzyme assay ・molecular ancestral state reconstruction ・