The Evolution of Biochemical Syntheses — Retrospect and Prospect

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the evolution of biochemical syntheses. Biology at the present time is entering a period of interest in the problems of evolution. The major impetus for this revival comes from the borderline area between genetics and biochemistry called molecular biology. This discipline promises a complete description of the genes, their activities, and their products at the molecular level. These advances are opening new areas of evolutionary research. The chapter discusses the evolution of biosynthetic reaction sequences in the light of recent developments. A mechanism for the evolution of biosynthetic pathways was proposed. The evidence indicated that a given gene controls the formation of one protein. The finding, which came to be known as the “one gene, one enzyme”—modified to “one gene–one polypeptide chain”—theory, implied that each biosynthetic pathway is governed by a constellation of functionally related genes.

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