Potassium Ion Channels: Could They Have Evolved from Viruses?

Potassium ion channels: could they have evolved from viruses?

All potassium channels share a common architecture consisting of their pore module with two transmembrane domains and a conserved filter region that selects for K ions. The current view is that the plethora of complex K channels in eukaryotes evolved from a pore module precursor via gene fusions and gene duplications. Here we suggest that this pore precursor might have originated from viruses. ...

Update on Potassium Ion Channels Potassium Ion Channels: Could They Have Evolved from Viruses?1[W]

Department of Biology, Technische Universität-Darmstadt, Schnittspahnstrasse 3, 64287 Darmstadt, Germany (G.T.); Department of Biosciences, University of Milan, Via Celoria 26, 20133 Milan Italy (A.M.); Information Genomique and Structurale, Unité Mixte de Recherche 7256, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Aix-Marseille Universite, FR–13288 Marseille, France (G.B.); and Department of...

Potassium Ion Channels: Could They Have Evolvedfrom Viruses?1[W]

How Could Language Have Evolved?

The evolution of the faculty of language largely remains an enigma. In this essay, we ask why. Language's evolutionary analysis is complicated because it has no equivalent in any nonhuman species. There is also no consensus regarding the essential nature of the language "phenotype." According to the "Strong Minimalist Thesis," the key distinguishing feature of language (and what evolutionary th...

Viruses infecting marine picoplancton encode functional potassium ion channels.

Phycodnaviruses are dsDNA viruses, which infect algae. Their large genomes encode many gene products, like small K(+) channels, with homologs in prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Screening for K(+) channels revealed their abundance in viruses from fresh-water habitats. Recent sequencing of viruses from marine algae or from salt water in Antarctica revealed sequences with the predicted characteristics...