Single Protein In Brain Could Be The Reason Why Humans Are The Smartest

The change in a protein called PTBP1 could have fueled the evolution of mammalian brains to become the largest and most complex among vertebrates.

A small change in a protein in our cells that could hold the key to how we evolved to become the smartest animal on planet has been discovered by researchers.

The change in a protein called PTBP1 that can spur the creation of neurons - cells that make the brain - could have fueled the evolution of mammalian brains to become the largest and most complex among vertebrates, the findings showed.

Evolution is Unpredictable and Irreversible: University of Pennsylvania Biologists
Using simulations of an evolving protein, experts show that genetic mutations that are accepted by evolution are dependent on mutations that came before.

A cell's ability to regulate protein diversity at any given time reflects its ability to take on different roles in the body.

The researchers earlier found that prevalence of alternative splicing (AS), whereby gene products are assembled into proteins, which are the building blocks of life, increases with vertebrate complexity.

So although the genes that make bodies of vertebrates might be similar, the proteins they give rise to are far more diverse in animals such as mammals, than in birds and frogs.

Mass Extinctions can Accelerate Evolution, This Proves to be True in Case of Robots
In computer simulations, the researchers connected neural networks to simulated robotic legs with the goal of evolving a robot that could walk smoothly and stably.

And nowhere is AS more widespread than in the brain.

"We wanted to see if AS could drive morphological differences in the brains of different vertebrate species," said lead author of the study Serge Gueroussov, a graduate student in the lab of Benjamin Blencowe, professor at the University of Toronto in Canada.

Dramatic 'Blow Out' Phase of Galactic Evolution Revealed for First Time
Recently, astronomers were able to reveal the dramatic blow out phase of galactic evolution for the first time.

Gueroussov previously helped identify PTBP1 as a protein that takes on another form in mammals, in addition to the one common to all vertebrates.

PTBP1's job in a cell is to stop it from becoming a neuron by holding off AS of hundreds of other gene products.

Darwin's Contribution to Evolutionary Theory may Not be Original, Claims Scientist
Patrick Matthew published the principle of natural selection as a mechanism of evolution in 1831, over a quarter-century earlier than Charles Darwin did.

The researchers showed that in mammalian cells, the presence of a second, shorter version of PTBP1 unleashes a cascade of AS events, tipping the scales of protein balance so that a cell becomes a neuron.

What is more, when the researchers engineered chicken cells to make the shorter, mammalian-like, PTBP1, this triggered AS events that are found in mammals.

The study was published in the journal Science.

Source-IANS