CDCResurrecting ancient proteins in modern E. coli can protect the bacterium from viral infection, scientists reported today (May 9) in Cell Reports. Researchers from Spain engineered the genetic sequences that code for ancestral forms of the protein thioredoxin—including one that would have existed about 4 billion years ago—and found that not only did the old protein function in the cells, but when these bacteria were exposed to the bacteriophage T7, they fended off viral infection.
“This is an interesting strategy that impedes the propagation of the virus,” biochemist Reinhard Sterner of the University of Regensburg in Germany told The Scientist. “It could be a new mode of viral resistance, which is pretty cool.”
The project got its start from an interest in plants. Specifically, Asunción Delgado and colleagues at the University of Granada knew that proteins in plants that aid viral replication haven’t evolved so much so that they can avoid being hijacked by viruses. So, the team wondered whether a different version of a protein, possibly an ancestral form, could keep an organism alive but prevent viral replication.
Thioredoxin was a good test subject: it is found in all modern organisms and is essential for both hosts and invading ...
