Proteins Remember Who We Are and Where We Come From

Proteins, often recognized as one of the three major nutrients alongside carbohydrates and fats, are indispensable for muscle development and maintenance. In fact, proteins constitute about 20% of muscle tissue, excluding water.

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Cryptochrome essentially creates a compass inside the body using light.

However, understanding proteins solely as nutritional components or muscle building blocks is insufficient. They are the workhorses of life, performing a vast array of essential functions. The book 'Dancing Proteins,' authored by two American scientists with backgrounds in biochemistry and microbiology, illuminates the often-overlooked, diverse, and astonishing roles of proteins.

Consider the bar-tailed godwit, which migrates hundreds of kilometers north from Gibraltar to Central Europe each autumn. Its remarkable ability to navigate accurately is attributed to a protein called cryptochrome. When sunlight enters the bird's eye and strikes cryptochrome, an electron pair within the protein's elements separates. The remaining single electron aligns with the Earth's magnetic field, acting like a compass needle. "Cryptochrome essentially creates a compass inside the body using light," the authors explain. This magnetic information is then converted into visual data and transmitted to the optic nerve, allowing the bird to "see" north rather than just know it.

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Birds don't 'know' north, they 'see' it.

This principle extends to other fascinating biological phenomena. Bats navigate dark caves using sound waves, sharks detect faint electromagnetic signals from prey hidden in sand, rattlesnakes create thermal maps of rodents in complete darkness using their heat-sensing abilities, and bears prevent muscle degradation during hibernation through complex protein interactions. These are all examples of intricate molecular processes driven by protein interactions.

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Each of these proteins holds a story, telling us who we are and where we come from.

Humans, too, rely heavily on self-produced proteins for nearly all survival activities. Each of our approximately 40 trillion cells is packed with proteins interacting within a saline solution. A single human cell contains roughly 30 billion protein molecules. "Each of these proteins holds a story, telling us who we are and where we come from," the book suggests. From birth to death, proteins remember our entire narrative. If DNA is the blueprint of life, then "proteins are the finished products, built according to that blueprint to actually do the work." The study of life and evolution, traditionally viewed through the lens of DNA mutations, is now being re-examined through the perspective of proteins.

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Proteins are the finished products, built according to that blueprint to actually do the work.