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Devolution: Earlier yeast splicosome was more complex

Denyse O'Leary
October 1, 2021
Evolution, Intelligent Design
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Isn’t it the case that a great deal of (lights and fanfare!) evolution we hear about is turning out to be devolution?:

Sales-Lee et al. show that the ancestral spliceosome was complex and the intronreduced yeast S. cerevisiae lost dozens of spliceosomal proteins maintained in intron-rich fungi and humans. Functional and proteomic analysis in the intron-rich yeast C. neoformans reveals roles for these proteins in splicing fidelity and uncovers functional modules.

Sales-Lee et al., Coupling of spliceosome complexity to intron diversity, Current Biology (2021), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.09.004 (forthcoming November 22, 2021)

As Michael Behe points out in Darwin Devolves. The evidence continues to pile up.

The paper is open access.

Comments
seversky:
If the loss of some previously advantageous function improves the chances of survival in a changing environment, how is that devolution?
Because it's a loss. You can improve your car's function by removing some regulatory features, but your car will still be devalued. But anyway: Can evolution make things less complicated?:
Instead, the data suggest that eukaryote cells with all their bells and whistles are probably as ancient as bacteria and archaea, and may have even appeared first, with bacteria and archaea appearing later as stripped-down versions of eukaryotes, according to David Penny, a molecular biologist at Massey University in New Zealand. Penny, who worked on the research with Chuck Kurland of Sweden's Lund University and Massey University's L.J. Collins, acknowledged that the results might come as a surprise. “We do think there is a tendency to look at evolution as progressive,” he said. “We prefer to think of evolution as backwards, sideways, and occasionally forward.”
Just another reason why any attempt at a tree of life is misguided, at best. ET
If the loss of some previously advantageous function improves the chances of survival in a changing environment, how is that devolution? Seversky

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