THE common ancestor of all living things was able to survive in almost
boiling water, claims Akihiko Yamagishi of the Tokyo College of Pharmacy.
His team worked out the “ancestral” structure of a commonly occurring enzyme,
3-isopropylmalate dehydrogenase, by comparing the versions of it found in
today’s bacteria. The researchers then modified a high-temperature bacterium,
Sulfolobus, to produce the ancestral enzyme. They found that the enzyme
withstood temperatures as high as 99 °C—three degrees higher than the
version normally found in Sulfolobus, Yamagishi told a recent meeting
of the Molecular Biology Society of Japan.
Many researchers, however, believe life…
