New Protein Super-family Discovered With Critical Functions For Animal Life

... Biologists have discovered a new super-family of developmental proteins that are critical for cell growth and differentiation and whose further study is expected to benefit research on cancer and the nerve-cell repair. The protein super-family, which existed before the emergence of animals about 850 million years ago, is of major importance for understanding how life evolved in primordial times. The discovery will be described in the February 14, 2007 issue of the journal PLoS ONE. ...