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Published online 23 September 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.940
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Protein burns its evolutionary bridges
Mutations can set genetic change on an irreversible path.
Time always marches forward — and so does evolution, according to a new study showing that protein changes that happened over the course of tens of millions of years can prevent molecular turnarounds and render evolution irreversible.
"This backwards pathway is not accessible to selection," says study author Joe Thornton, a molecular evolutionary biologist at the University of Oregon in Eugene.
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